Which type of audio player did you grow up using? One of my oldest memories is riding around in my dad's work truck (he worked for Budweiser XD) listening to his collections of old Irish tunes on cassette. For some reason I really enjoyed Jolly Tinker by Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers haha!
I really believe that each format has a culture all its own. Cassette culture is very rich and even contains subcultures within based on genre; for example cassettes were important to hip hop in the 80s and 90s much how cassettes were important to metalheads and punk fans. There's just something about cassettes, from the color of the tape, the photos and lyrics within the j-card, it just makes for great analog packaging of music and creates an experience separate but still parallel to vinyl and CD.
I prefer cassettes. Those were the days I'd really listen to music, hear every song and really connected with the music. When CDs arrived that's when I'd start skipping and going straight to the hits, ect. Streaming is even worse.
true, but without digital I wouldn't be able to experience daft punk for the first time. And having someone's playlist they spent years on is an experience
As somone who only just got into cassetes i love the sound of the end off cassettes where it goes from a hiss which stops on each channle and then you hear the deck make a *click* and a *clunk* and then silence. Honestly is like watching a really good movie where your just sit back in the credits and go "wow... that was nice".
Decent cassettes sound incredibly well with a high end deck, but even with a cheaper one. I have a lot of old tapes from the 90s made on East-german "HiFi". When I put them in a new TASCAM deck my jaw dropped! I had in my mind that hissing boom box sound. But they sound really good! Even after 25 years! With an upper class deck (in my case AIWA AD-F810) and decent cassettes (TDK SA, BASF Chrome Super II, Denon) you'll get results you will not believe if you don't hear it! Even without Dolby virtually no hiss. If you don't tell somebody that's tape he'll think it's from CD! When tape disappeared in the early 2000 that technology was mature and at a final point. It couldn't get better any more. Digital music was and is more convenient. But the sound often isn't better. Even with high bit rates. You can put thousands of tapes on an USB stick and the sound is ok. The quality will stay that way. That's it! If you like music and sound, sooner or later you want something to grab on. Vinyl or tape. This imperfect analog hardware that makes music come to life ...
@@MusicTheoriesChannel ;) I'm proud that I made you curiuos! Half a year ago I saw a video about a new TASCAM deck. Than I saw my dozens of tapes laying around. Well, I gave it a try! Next step I bought some really good old decks on ebay. When they are in good condition they are much better than the newer ones. If you find a cheap deck that cost more than 500 or 1000 bugs 20 years ago you couldn't go wrong. If I had known that I hadn't bought the new TASCAM!
You are right. I am a professional vintage audio repair tech, and I have two decks at home, a Teac A-303 (middle of the line, from 1974) and a Pioneer CT-F900 (near the top of Pioneer's line in 1977-78). The Teac sounds good with prerecorded tapes in good condition, but the three-head Pioneer can sound amazingly good. I'm not ready to compare it to uncompressed digital, but it's amazing how far the format came from its introduction in 1963 as a monophonic dictation medium with a frequency response of about 100-6,000 Hz. Keep in mind that NO cassette deck (or other analog tape deck) will sound its best unless it is cleaned after every two to ten hours of play, demagnetized after every 100 hours or so, and unless it is professionally checked and adjusted once every year or two.
Not sure your USB stick files will stay that way. USB sticks don't seem stable. Hard drives last around 5 years and then crash. The cloud is OK so long as you maintain your subscription but only because the companies are constantly replacing their drives as they fail. I still have 40 year old cassette tapes that sound good and also CDs around 35 years old that play perfectly. Vinyl of course goes on even longer if not subject to physical damage.
People who think cassettes are lo-fi haven’t used a quality deck. Metal tape encoded with Dolby S or DBX has a better dynamic range and frequency response than CD. Even prerecorded type 1 tapes are better to me than CD, but I prefer all analog formats over digital
I love pre-recorded music on cassette. Less hassle than the ritual of wiping static from a record and cleaning the stylus before playing. Especially dig the clunk and whir of the cassette deck buttons when you press rewind and play. I’m a fam of most formats though including CDs and streaming. It’s all music anyway.
I've started making the transition to vinyl again after all these years (I grew up with it). My reasons are a combination of all of the things said here. I like the warmth of the sound. I like the ritual. I the larger size of the album cover and sleeve and that there is a lot of information on it that is completely absent from digital streaming. I like that there is a connection between me and the physical music.
Dear Tape Lovers, Greetings from India. Middle aged or senior citizens who are tape addicts will appreciate and comprehend that the analogue tapes from BASF, TDK, SONY & AXIA if recorded from good source and on a decent tape deck from Technics (965, AZ7, TR777 & 979), Nakamichi (DR-10) and Sony (ES) series (I have such models) may easily surpass the vinyl any day. Using a recording for commercial use may be a crime but for personal use has always been legal. Agreed, that a tape recording can never sound better than source but the ability of tapes to be recorded in limitless options can satisfy the appetite of most demanding audiophiles. Settings of Bias, Treble and Vocals is limitless with a good tape deck and if you may get hold of some good DAC such as RME DAC ADI-2 FS or a streamer like new Arcam ST60, try recording a contemporary track and you will be stunned with the output of a Chrome or Metal tapes. The hiss is what makes it special, but if you scorn the same, playing tape on any good deck, even without any sound suppressing options such as Dolby or DBX, the hiss sound is nearly non-existent. Music sounds more melodic and warmer on tape, more than vinyl. Not that vinyl is bad either. They both are tangible and much warmer compared to best digital music from any digital source. All you need is some good money and some luck to find a tape deck and invest a little in blank tapes, what you will hear will certainly make you realise, what you have been missing in music so far in life. Long Live Tape and Long Live Music.
The thing with sound quality is you can always do better - regardless of the format you're using. On decent (but not expensive) equipment, I listen to (and still buy) CDs, cassettes, MP3s, and LPs without worrying the comparative differences. I remember people in the early 1990s dumping their record collections only to regret it later. Today, people are dumping entire CD collections for a couple hundred bucks. That's the big point to focus on with physical formats right now: CDs are the most durable, convenient, easy to transport, and easy-to-digitize. They are also the easiest format to find and the cheapest to buy.
CDs will make a huge comeback down the road.Why?Whats old always becomes new again.Plus, the Cassettes collectors today,who are still collecting cassettes, will inspire future cassette collectors to keep collecting cassettes of tomorrow.👍Cassettes are still fun to collect and it all comes down to how you the cassette collector, store ur cassettes and how you handle them.If you take good care of ur cassettes and treat them right, your cassettes will definitely take care of you.They said cassettes are only good for 30 some years? Well how come my cassettes are still playing today?And alot of my cassettes are way over 30 years old.Always keep ur cassettes in a safe environment.Meaning out of the sunlight or moldy basements, or hot atics.Always rewind ur cassette after playing them.Store away properly.😃👍God bless cassettes and CDs.😀👍✌❤
I have to agree with you! I think CDs will make a comeback at some point. There's been a recent uptick in the glorification of the early 2000's so we shall see 😆
Each format has its own use. Records have high sound quality, also, they are not affected by magnetic fields. Reel to reel tape is good for preserving records (record a brand new record to tape, then listen to that tape instead of wearing out the record). Also, I can have long playing tapes (up to 3 hours per side), so I need to flip/change them less often compared to records. I can also record the songs I want to a tape, not necessarily from a record I own (a borrowed recording, the radio etc). Cassettes are similar to reel to reel tapes, with the difference that they are a bit lower quality and shorter maximum playing time, but cheaper and portable, so I can play my music in my car or just outside. Also, at least where I live, a lot of music (that I like) was released on cassette only.
I like how cassettes are smaller and usually cheaper than Vinyl. I also love how they have end labels, making them more displayable on a shelf. And, with the right equipment, they can sound amazing. The only downside is that some tapes warp or wear out and aren't really playable anymore, but they're cheap enough to replace when that happens.
The 'machine eats tape' story mostly comes from cheap tapes used in cheap car stereos. These decks are very low quality, and due to being installed in a car, which rattles around, is exposed to humidity and heat and maybe even people smoking inside the car, the dirty mechanism caused the tape to get stuck. Also, I'm not so sure about what you said about longevity of tape. I have cassettes from my dad which are almost 40 years old and they sound perfect, indistinguishable from a CD, whereas some of my vinyl records I bought second hand can sound very muffled on sections that have been played very often. Nevertheless, great video!
Makes sense! Got this info from various sources (linked) and not from my own experience, so you could very well be right about the longevity. Thanks for watching!
Yeah definitely depends on how much your spend, $13 tape player on Amazon is gonna sound awful and eat your tapes. Just like record players, if you buy a $50 dollar record player it’s gonna be made of plastic and slow. I used to have one of those cheap cassette players and it ate my Rod Stewart tape :( But now I have a Sony Walkman and a JVC boombox with cd and radio functions and it sounds amazing and has never ate a tape. About the lifespan of tapes, I have many 30-50 year old tapes and sound wonderful still. I have my one of my grandpas Fleetwood Mac tapes almost being 50 years old and my grandpa said he used to play it every day for years, still sounds amazing. As for what sounds better I would say Cassettes are better, With vinyl you might be able to hear a bit of stuff you can’t hear on cassette, but of course the surface snap crackle pop makes cassette take the lead. Cassettes are more portable, way more portable, but records are fun to look at when your watching it spin.
Glad to hear someone else who understands cassette recorded analog media for the purpose and warmth of it. I had to recently throw out all my CD's that I made in the 2010's. They just would not work in any player anymore. It's like they where slowly being erased over time losing data and skipping. I still have plenty of personal cassettes i made years before and they ALL still work fine. The cassette deck I made them on died but it was easy to buy a refurbished cassette deck from eBay from a reputable buyer who repairs mostly tape decks. The tapes sound as good as day one and are 15to 20 years older than the CD's. If you want to store your audible memories do it on a cassette tape. They will still be around years from now and so will the equipment to play them on. My oldest cassette is over 54 years old and still plays. I think that is enough for a lifetime and then some for whoever to discover it. My outdoor time capsule tape (Maxell UR 90 clear shell) was buried in the soil in a zip lock bag in an air tight container 30 years ago and still plays just as it did when new. Try that with a CD or MP3 player and see if they still work.
Toronto Canada AKA The 6ix🇨🇦 Great topic love the reasoning I've been a DJ for years now and I grew up on cassettes vinyl and CDs📀 but my daughter who is now 14 and some of her friends are crazy about vinyl and cassettes! My kid has a cassette tape collection which is pretty impressive👌🏽She's a big fan of Motown, Disco & Old school hip hop and loves Billie eilish which she also has on cassette tape I asked her why is this such a big deal to have them on Old school cassette🤔 she tells me because it sounds warmer to her ears she says these days everyone is in a rush 😒 and digital music is sharp and quick but with analog it makes you take the time to listen to the instruments and vocals in a relaxing way...😏Great Channel keep up the good work!💯
I love that you’re both into music and can share that enthusiasm from different perspectives! I think it’s pretty cool that newer artists like Billie Eilish are releasing music on different formats as well. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
I'd love to hear that sometime. I actually have a friend in multiple touring metal bands, and I have a few of their cassettes. all I need is the right deck! thanks so much for watching (:
@@MusicTheoriesChannel Np. There's a few Nakamichi decks floating around on Ebay lately at reasonably inexpensive prices, bid or buy now. I want to add that I think you have a soothing voice, as well. And your videos are edited nicely. Keep it up.
@@MusicTheoriesChannel It is the tape that is metal, not the music. It is coated with metal particles, to be precise. Type IV metal tape is not manufactured anywhere now. They can be played on any tape deck, but can only be recorded on machines capable of the very high bias level needed. As for buying cassette machines, many made in the late nineties to end of production in the early 00's, that are classed by audiophiles as "entry level" are absolutely excellent. Nakamichi are one such make, but a bit expensive due to the name, so look for others such as Yamaha and Denon. Typical prices at auction now for a clean, working machine now are under $100 USD. A low-end Nakamichi will be about double this, and only platinum-plated audiophiles with silver cables and fairy dust can tell the difference. ;-) On tapes themselves, the fate of many was death by faulty hardware. Moreover, pre-recorded ones were often made using cheap stock, and duplicated badly at high speed on worn out machines, which gave them a bad reputation. Nevertheless, I have some high-quality classical music tapes more than thirty years old which still work perfectly.
Got them all! And all of them can still move your soul in different ways. Certainly some formats are stuck with a specific generation (LP's and 8-tracks on 70-80's, cassettes on 90's and Cds by the mid-end 90's) but the average collector admires the aspect of holding onto something while the listening experiences goes with every listening you get on your favourite format. Cassettes are special, since with most home devices of the time, you could record your fav song from the radio or just add another one and do a personal mix and put it while you drive on holidays or anywhere (maybe the beginnings of the playlists?). One thing is sure, each hold its ground up until today! Still see and know about several Deadheads still listening their cassette tapes. I can't resist to listen a Blu-Ray in Hi-Res or with a 5.1mix (Steven Wilson's are surely the ones to get on this department) but to grap an LP, put it on and just lay down and let that music blow your mind is quite the experience anyone can enjoy.
My favourite way to listen to music is actually the Minidisc, which has almost CD quality sound but with the sturdiness and durability of a cassette, especially for portable players or car head units. Also the fact you can edit the discs yourself on your equipment with the touch of a button, to cut tracks perfectly of a continuous live recording you made yourself for example, using nothing more than your home deck or portable recorder, without having to rip or capture it to a computer to edit there. The antishock mechanism is also perfect for portable and car units, making it virtualñy impossible to make a track jump at all... And all in a very compact and easy to handle design.
Personally, I love all physical mediums. Each one has its own pros and cons as you described really well, so great job. If I were to add something to your analysis, I think one could make an argument that certain genres of music are not really well suited for tape (I'm talking the portable players here), while others can be straight up just fun to listen to on tape. For me, I've got some old Jim Croce tapes that remind me of my dad and him playing guitar, so listening to those tapes are really fun for the nostalgia. Also certain genres that are sonically busy can drown out the hiss that comes from tape. I feel like tape really suffers with music that really needs quiet and loud moments (e.g. classical would probably not be fun to listen to on tape unless you have an amazing tape deck). Anyway, that's my two cents. Thanks for the analysis.
I love that you brought up emotional connection. If you spent so much time listening to tape with your dad, the tape will undoubtedly make you feel close to him and that’s a reason to collect in and of itself!
Cassettes have always been my thing. I’ve picked up hundreds of unspooled tapes when they used to be out along the streets and roads and would put them all back together and play them. Sound quality wasn’t my big concern. I just enjoyed hearing what was on them as cast away sounds. To this day I’ll hear a clean clear recording of a song and remember some of the unique wrinkled areas, stretches, and spots where the song was broke in two ( or many pieces depending on the condition of the tape ). I played some broken tapes enough times for those damaged areas to set deep in my mind. Of course with all that scotch tape, I had be sure to clean my boom box’s capstan, pinch roller and head often.
I collect Audio Compact Cassette Tapes! Have over 4,000 Different Types Styles Colours Brands of Cassettes in my collection. Not to mention, never stopped recording audio on Cassettes, still do till this day, since you can buy blank tapes at almost any store today. Audio Compact Cassette Tapes remain my number one format for music Reproduction.
I love cassette because it makes me remember my father because he loves to collect cassette, walk me to the cassette store and grab something that he or I like, and I think I was raised near the end of the cassette era. Now after finishing my collage, I start to collect cassette again, because I couldn't afford one before. Recently I bought an old Player and some Japanese song record. I'm not really comparing about the sound quality but, I think that doesn't really matter as long I enjoy the content of it. But I guest you can't really compare Vinyl and Cassette sound quality because, the one that release on the market are using the Type I Cassette instead of Type IV (that have low noise with a CD like sound quality). For me, having a physical copy of a song or album that you love is there was some satisfaction that you can't describe. My opinion is if you really aiming for sound quality or audio fidelity, you sound go for high end digital audio. In this old media, you will find hiss or noise (Cassette) and popping or crackling sound (Vinyl). You can't really get a clean audio from it. But just like the ending, "Do what you want". Love it.
That's why I love Bandcamp right now. Any purchase of a physical album grants you access to the digital in any format including lossless. Also shout-out to the We Are Rewind cassette player that recently got hated into oblivion. Yes the motor noise is apparent but the thing is solidly built and sounds great, is SUPER convenient, and although not designed to be portable you can place some rubber feet from Amazon on the bottom and then set it anywhere. It costs quite a bit but it's worth it imo. And it records and plays in stereo. That alone is amazing nowadays.
I collect Cassette tapes and what i enjoy the most is the bootleg market... Sometimes i find fan made versions of albums that are better than the original version, with a better art, including posters and even bonus tracks (like in deluxe Editions). I mean, isn't a cassette exclusive but i see that the cassette collectors enjoy the fan made versions and support the production. Cassettes are portable, has that lo-fi quality that many people enjoy (of couse, it depends on the gear) and are cheap, you can buy great albums way more cheaper than CDs or Vinyls and still has the analogue charm.
For me, the most defining characteristic of a Vinyl record is the fact that don't require ANY source of electricity to play, but it does definitely help if you do and good luck finding an old player that does it's thing with only the stored potential energy of a spring and acoustic sound enhancement
Cassettes can sound great if you have a good deck and, ironically, if you record your own rather than buying commercially dubbed cassettes. They're objectively even "warmer" than vinyl. However commercial music cassettes were dubbed _en masse_ at really low quality, aimed at teens like me who played them back on cheap Walkmans and boomboxes where it just didn't matter that much. If audiophiles used magnetic media at all they stuck strictly to very expensive "reel to reel" tape machines. But if you have some good quality Type IV blanks and record your own, dubbing in real time from the source with Dolby B noise reduction implemented properly, audio cassettes can actually sound quite wonderful. One issue nowadays is that literally nobody makes quality new cassette decks anymore &nobody makes high quality Type II & Type IV blank cassettes either so you're stuck with second-hand products or "new-old" stock of wildly varying quality.
In the 80's I prefered vinyl because of the booming sound and huge sleeves (and when they were glossy and not matte) they were a joy to touch and almost to smell. But my sister preferred tapes because they were smaller and because they didn't wear, the sound remained pretty much the same at every listen not like vinyl who would degraded with every listen. Those were our arguments in the family back in the day. Today we both love CD's for their durability (my first CD bought in 1992 is still in mint condition, pretty much) and the sound without wear is remarquable. Plus the CD instant track random access is surely a plus. But eventually both of us appreciate now MP3's more because we can carry them everywhere (in our cars on flash drives or in our phones and computers when we travel).
I think many are overlooking the elephant in the room. How many people do you know personally that own their own record lathe? I think some do not hold cassettes with the same regard as vinyl because you can't record onto vinyl. Lacquer master blanks are expensive and lathes are hundreds of times more expensive. A record can be seen as something never done by a "layman" and scene as always professionally produced.
I love all three, for me its like a tangible things. Plus i was born in 03. I still remember vhs at Hollywoodvideo. Plus the thing I also like about collecting them all is that they fill different roles. Records for when you aren't really going anywhere, Tape for when you want a analog sound but limited on space or time plus you can pick it up again where you left off, and CD for convenience. They all should be loved and people respected for collecting what they love, be it looks or any other reason.
@@MusicTheoriesChannel I have two portable 8-track players and three other ones two of which needs belts the portable ones work great just need to find a plug in for the solid-state when I have
Been into tapes (and vinyl) for 40+ years (and about 30 years into CD's, used MIniDisc in the late 90s too)... NEVER EVER had a tape eaten by the equipment. I have more CD's that are unplayable due to CD rot, or even vinyl records (even though I love them) that skipped right out of the factory because the grooves literally were too close together (even I should admit that on a few thousand it's less than 10 albums that have that problem). So I keep asking myself: what crappy equipment or tapes have people used to primarily remember tapes being eaten by the player, or even winding cassettes with a pencil (since all pencils in Belgium are too small to even do that - even during the haydays of cassette: the 1980s, we used to use a specific model of - very cheap - ballpoint pen to do that). But I just like cassettes (not the prerecorded ones) because it has a lot of the advantages of vinyl (yes it is High Fidelity, if you use good cassettes and invest in good equipment - no need for super expensive -, but it's also a tactile format, and even more conventient in use than vinyl). Even with pretty basic Dolby C the tape hiss is minimal, and with Dolby S it's hardly noticeable. But still, if I'd wanted digital, I'd use it (and I often do, too).
It's so funny to me how split people are on the decks eating the tape 😆its definitely likely that a lot of people were simply using cheaper machinery! all the comments on this video have really inspired me to want to find a quality deck to give cassettes a fair shot.
@@commondog3956 My opinion is that a decent deck does not have to be a three head, two motor, amorphous head and very expensive deck. Of course those decks will have some advantages. But whatever mid-range and higher deck from the late eighties and early nineties from a reputable maker will probably be a decent deck. It might (and probably will) need some new rubber parts and general revision of the mechanical parts (and perhaps even part of the electronics). If budget is a limitation: I have very good experiences with "normal" cassettes the Pioneer CT-S450S for instance (which is hardly a high end or high tech deck, but then again: normal tapes are not high end either). I tend to choose for non autoreverse, single decks. Dolby C as minimum noise reduction. I like the later Pioneer BLE technology (or Auto BLE or Super BLE, or what ever they have called their automatic Bias, Level and EQ calibration). Other brands will probably have similar capabilities. You could go high tech, high price as well... Just look at the reviews (there are several forums around that focus on that). And... most importantly: enjoy what you're doing.
I mainly collect cassette tapes(cause i grew up using the format, and the sound is amazing to my ears even with the hiss. I haven't had any issues with them. (I have auto-reverse deck, so i don't have to get up and flip the tape myself.) I also record my spotify playlist onto some good quality Maxell chrome tapes and TDK tapes. And then i collected CD's. Also about the hiss..there's Dolby Noise Reduction, which lower the hiss, and no tapes can last 50 years if taken care of properly. Trust me i have tapes from the 70's that still sound like new.
People do not collect cassettes because they naturally degrade over time. The tape just breaks. You can do whatever you can to keep your records from scratching and warping, but a casette tape can break just from being used.
Woah, great video! Saw in recommended and after watching shocked to see how many subs u have (Id thought you'd be a big channel like techmoan). Definitely subbing and I recently started collecting cassettes in the past 3 months, up to about 60 rn because how cheap they are that's why I started buying them. Also going into record stores some good albums will just sit there because not a lot of people are looking for cassettes which makes it better for me lol.
What an amazing compliment! Thank you so much for the support. I'll be uploading again very soon (: I actually have also picked up a few cassettes since making this video and I was shocked at how many amazing albums I could find for $3 and under...I couldn't agree more!
I Listen to Compact Cassette Tapes on a Daily Basis, And They Still Sound Amazing Crisp Clear. I have Cassettes From 1968, Which Still Sound Good. I Don't Remember Having Any Problems With Compact Cassette Tapes.
It is indeed very convenient and easy in today's time to listen to music because of the music streaming platforms brought to us by the internet. There is no need to individually purchase each album or single of your favorite artists. By simply paying a subscription fee, you can listen to any music you desire. However, despite the modern way of listening to music, you still long for the physical record that may deteriorate over time but holds memories of the past, especially of your youth. Having a collection of records is a testament to your love for the art of music, and while buying albums of your favorite artists may have been expensive, there were plenty of options available due to the thriving music industry, as artists used to earn more from records back then than they do now.
I learned that their were 3 different classes of the pellets used to make the record . Some has the highest quality that when you pulled it out of the inner sleeve it would have no dust lint from the sleeve. BUCK OWENS GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2.Fit this so well the record looked brand new. The sound was as equally awesome. Records are better than tapes but are more easily damaged. Tapes had wrapups more to poor quality players than being bad tapes.You can argue which is best. Records are better with tapes a close second. I like the tapes because many used the high end tape to make the recording match the record quality. This was started in the 1980s to boost sales because of the Walkman being a hit with terrible battery life. That's another story 😎
I know for a fact cassette tapes last 40 + years. I have pre-recorded cassettes from the late 1970's and blank cassettes that I recorded vinyl albums as far back as 1981 that still sound great. I shouldn't say the pre-recorded tapes sound "Great". The quality got much higher by the mid-1980's. Cassettes like Princes "Around the World in a Day" & Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" are excellent quality recordings.
I like cassettes, I don't know why. I could say that is the portable experience of listenning a full album, but I do it with digital music too. I have a big collection of digital CD quality FLAC music, have vinyl, but I like cassettes.
When I was a kid cds were what was popular at the time. Cassettes were still widely sold and cars didn't really have CD players in them yet. I had a portable tape and cd player. As an adult I listen to several forms such as vinyl, CD, and digital. I think as far as convenience goes digital will always win because you can get it on your phone, TV, and computer. I do also collect a lot of vinyl because I like the sound and the large artwork and jackets that come with them.
The argument that cassettes didn't sound as good as 8 tracks doesn't sound right to me. While it's true that cassete decks with Dolby were expensive over the years the price fell dramatically. In 1993 I bought a nice Kenwood dual tape deck for about $150. A very reasonable price. And I still have some of the recordings I made it to this day. If I've said it once I've said it a million times. A good recording needs 3 things. 1. The knowledge to make a decent recording. 2. A decent quality tape. 3. A decent deck. Unlike 8 tracks a cassette won't interrupt your song to change channels. And cassettes are making a comeback.
I think cassettes get bashed on for sounding bad because the average person probably wasn't taking great care of them. Even if the tapes just sat in a car, temperature changes throughout the days/months/years would slowly mess it up. Vinyl records rarely left the house compared to tapes, so they were probably cared for better. And that's not even talking about all the poor quality tapes and bad recordings people would've made as amateurs.
For me it's not about sound or aesthetic. It's about just being able to hold the albums I love in my hands and listen to them off the physical albums when I'm in the mood to. Just feeling closer to the music that I love. But sound? I'm not an audiophile at all, I don't really care. I just love music and I appreciate the difference in audio quality, to me there is no "better" or "worse" sound quality. It's all great for different reasons. And the aesthetic? I mean... sure I love looking at them but literally nobody I know in person likes my music, so it's not going to spark any conversations.
At first, I got into collect cassettes as a joke lol, my friend buys rare coloured vinyl exclusively, more for the collectors mentality, so as a joke I found a brightly coloured cassette tape in a record store and started mocking him and bought it cause it was cheap and I could stick it in my pocket 😂 I was always into 80s video games and tech anyway so once I had nothing to play my new tape in I instantly got a deck and tape set up and now I exclusive buy physical music releases on tape, fell in love the the clunk of the buttons when you press play and having to actively get up and turn to side b makes me focus on the music more 😁
For sure! Thanks for bringing that up. From what I gathered in my research, sooo many people tend to cite "tape hiss" as a reason to NOT collect tape, but I don't think I saw it mentioned once as a reason to not collect vinyl. So weird!
@@MusicTheoriesChannel Vinyl lovers are a little overprotective sometimes haha I would know lol I'm a sound engineer and can assure you that there is hiss in vinyl recordings as well and have audio clips to prove it. Amazing video btw keep it up :)
Bands were mastered on tape in the recording studios back in the day.They would cut the record off that master. So yes, tape can sound really good. They can sound better than vinyl.
Reasons why I collect Vinyl: 1. Ownership - In a world that’s moving towards rented access for everything, it’s nice to own something for a change again. 2. Mastering Quality - Vinyl prints haven’t succumbed to the loudness war/dynamic compression problem. This is where the sound quality arguments come from, all modern Vinyls start as digital masters so the analog argument is moot, they’re simpler balanced better and avoid compression clipping. Ownership is a massive reason people have jumped back on the bandwagon for physical media, a lot of people are tired of every company moving to monthly subscriptions whether they realise it or not.
Nice video :) I don't know how I would see the cassette if I was young nowadays, but with my user experience from vinyls, cassettes, CD, MD, and smartphones, I find cassettes to have features still relevant today, including the infamous tape hiss if you're ASMR-sensitive ;) [note : I still use my phone most of the time, which is a bit of a shame actually because it means I became lazy ;) ] Of course I'm not saying cassettes are the one and only "grail medium" but it can be a good option to consider if you're curious or, like me, enjoy the fun of interacting with it. Depending on the hardware, sound quality can be very good, not bad enough to be a problem today, especially given the built quality of default earphones you get with most devices XD. Some hardware not easily affordable in the past are today (excluding really iconic devices suffering from grotesque speculation on eBay) and we can get better sound quality now (but don't use USB walkmans for quality ^^). It's a resilient medium, as even when part of the tape is eaten you can still repair it (with just scissors and adhesive tape) and limit the disaster. Scratches on the surface are less likely to happen than on a CD and what you'll lose with age is basically frequency range, but you'll still be able to read the media, even if the quality went bad. Scratches on a CD or vinyl are less forgiving, and a data error on a file can make the entire track unreadable more easily. And hard disc disaster *does* exists (and as we witnessed a few monthes ago, even datacenters *do* burn down). Something to consider too is the durability of the players/recorders, portable cassette units usually runs with standard AA our AAA batteries, and models using a gumstick battery by default have a battery adaptor included, so more freedom on power supply. That said, belts and capacitors are a weak point. Also, operations are easy, and no buttons get locked for the amount of time required by unwanted ads. And no privacy data mining :) Oh, and they even work without network ! Hardware buttons (on most walkmans) are usually recognisable by touch and you can operate the device with a minimal loss of focus.
I think the reason people look down on cassettes today is because of their bad memories with them. Unless you were rich or had rich parents, you were stuck with a cheap Walkman or radio/cassette player, which contained cheaper mechanisms that put out inferior sound quality, and had the tendency to eat tapes. Put a tape in a Walkman and then into a high end deck like a Nakamichi or Technics, and I guarantee you that you’ll be amazed by the difference.
I've recently started collecting cassettes and despite knowing that the sound quality won't be as crisp as vinyl or as convenient as digital; the enjoyment I get from finding new music, different songs and making my own mixtapes makes them worthwhile for me. I love learning more about the things I enjoy and cassettes have been at the forefront, but I'm enjoying the various music formats my parents and even grandparents enjoyed, which is a plus in my eyes.
In the 70's when I bought a new album, I used to record it on to cassette on it's first play and still pristine. No dust, little or no static, no scratches etc. The album would then go away and stay perfecto. I could listen to the album on my hifi system or in the car, with no concerns about damage, because I had the perfect back up. Often after listening to it, I would decide I only bought it for the single and did not like the album. As the LP was still unblemished I got a much higher resale. When CDs came along I got into that genre too, but held on to the LP's. Then came mini disc, my LP's came out yet again and were recorded on to those and my cassette player in the car and walkman were replaced. Along came MP3 then FLACs and another recycle with next recording of my 33's, but then what was the point of keeping them after that? I sold my Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference for a decent profit after owning it for 40 years. I now source my music from a SSD hard drive, via a Blu Ray player into a Yamaha amplifier and then on to my current speakers. Their technology is much the same after all this time. However. Did I enjoy Meddle - Pink Floyd on LP, of course. On cassette, yes. On mini disc, too right. On CD excellent. MP3 was ace and FLAC may be better, but my ears are 68 years old now and therefore untrustworthy. I even enjoy it, played badly, by ear, on my guitar or piano. It is not the format that counts, but what you are listening to. Oh and I rarely listen to music in my car now, it's mostly audio books on MP3 at 96 - 128 kbs. Music is for my stereo hi fi system only.
I still use cassettes on a high-quality player. Let me tell you when people listen to them, they always tell me that the quality is better than streaming. Use quality cassettes and a quality player, and you'll have a quality listening experience.
I appreciate your input! I'd love to have a quality deck someday and be able to access that quality sound you're talking about. Unfortunately, even though streaming can be a decrease in audio quality, its, overall, more accessible to the everyday listener.
I love collecting cassettes cassettes are really awesome and I love collecting vinyl and CDs there is nothing like holding onto something physical the artwork the music everything and I love the warm sound of vinyl and turning up the volume and hearing that snap crackle pop I also love hearing the hits on the cassette tape it’s very authentic I grew up on cassette tapes and I got into CDs and I got into vinyl records my new favorite record now it’s 78th and they’re really fantastic even though they’re made out of shellac but I think that should have a huge come back and I wanna do my part to make sure that it happens even blank blank cassette tapes are awesome I love recording them especially the 120 minute ones.
I want to post a video comment: currently listening to a cassette from 1973. Sounds great! It’s the cassette decks that need care before they destroy your tapes. Clean them, check the belts, don’t leave tapes in them when not playing. 8-Tracks are flimsy!!!!… but I LOVE them.
Growing up in the 80s, I had mixed reactions with cassette tapes. Sometimes they would sound amazing and other times like crap. I now know it's because of (1) the formulation of the tape itself, (2) the device and settings that records the tape, (3) the device that plays the tape, (4) the technology behind the tape (eg. Dolby B/C/S, HX-PRO, Digalog, etc.), and (5) the whether the device that plays the tape can take advantage of the encoded technology. The vast majority think tapes are simple. They are not. And that's why I collect cassettes: I'm still learning new things about something I should have known in the past.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciate cassettes for sure (I do not collect) but it seems like there are a ton of factors that play into making them sound a certain quality. Which is great for someone who is passionate and really into getting that sound quality, but not necessarily practical for the every day user. Thanks for watching!!
I always liked the hiss. Thing I did not liked w casettes was you had to constantly flip them or blindy fast frwd them. Now I want to go back to them cause I start to appreciate Albums more and because vinyls and casettes are harder to skip tracks than cd or DAP players, you mentally go in such listening state.
I only got cassettes to record on and play them in the car. My cherished collections are on record albums and Cds. I used to like CDs in the 1980s when they were recorded lower. I hated when they started making CDs all louder sounding and cold.
When I listen to 80s City Pop, such as Mariya Takeuchi, Junko Ohashi, Anri, Tatsuro Yamashita, and many others, I do have another separate TH-cam tab opened, so a hiss can be played in the background, and I also have an Equalizer Chrome Extension and a pitch/speed control extension for TH-cam videos, to make the music sound like listening to sound like it's on cassette tape, since it's "80s Japanese Pop." I feel the hiss and that lo-fi sound of cassette tapes fits this music era VERY WELL, compared to Vinyl Crackling, which in my opinion, belongs in an older era than the 70s and 80s. Personality, I simulate the background noise of music format when listening to older music on TH-cam based on the era of both the music, and the format. It really enhances the vibe of the era of the music I listen to when it was released on that format ONLY, way before releasing it on CDs.
I moved for employment and within 5 years commuted for 90 minutes each way back to where I moved from. I recorded radio programmes and listened to them the next day on the train. So built up a large collection of off-air recordings (audio dramas documentary as well as music programmes). Recent I got a 1990s B&O system with a HX Pro and have been impressed with the quality of reproduction particularly of live recordings including those made on other decks with Dolby B and C. I have even managed to find sealed original recordings over 30 years old that are remarkably good now. Is the cassette, type 1 ferric in Dolby B up to the vinyl or CD possibly not, I can't really say. The music was so compelling in any format I too quickly got into listening to the music and not the equipment and that is all I want from any music playback. There is one aspect that is very different. You can buy an inexpensive to insanely hi-end brand new turntable for vinyl but a decent to hi-end cassette deck has not be manufactured for decades.
:) the local thrift store sells cassettes for 3/$1! After repairing my dads old Nakamichi Cassette Deck 2, I’ve been having a blast finding old cassettes at the thrift stores. I was very surprised by the quality that old higher-end decks can reproduce! Nothing like the boom boxes and car cassette decks I grew up on. I enjoy ripping my fresh vinyls onto a new old stock high end tape (usually type II, but some of my favorites get the type IV treatment). So I have a pretty bad ass old record collection, and many have only seen the needle one time! Cassettes are dope man, I hope they’re here to stay.
I love the way nice cassettes look when playing in classic machines but most people are not interested in the engeneering of mechanisms. Truly hifi systems have always been niche and even though vinyl is popular, the popular players are all those cheap systems because the mainstream which companies target (since that's where most money is made) don't really care about wow and flutter amongst other things. Also tapes are inconvenient since you do not have random access (for most people that's a big turn off) and finally a good sounding turntable is MUCH cheaper to build than a good sounding tape deck. Most people wouldn't want to open their wallets to spend a lot on a high end deck because in the end, vinyl as well as tapes are just a novelty today.
Completely agree here. I think if a medium requires expensive equipment, it’s not accessible to everyone and thus becomes a novelty. Which is okay, but I don’t like the idea of excluding people because they can’t afford the necessary equipment.
It's so important to use the right tape for your machine and the results will be amazing. Chromium or metal do best. With an automatic Calibration possibility you will get the best result for every cassette.
No one collects cassettes because they don't make for good hipster home decor. A wall of records is more aesthetic than a wall of tapes. Obviously vinyl has gotten popular for other reasons, but I'd wager a large portion of the demand is at least partially because of what I just said.
There are cassette tape collectors out there. I heard on the radio about one guy in Kentucky that has a collection of 27,000 cassettes. I have no idea how true that is. Myself I have amassed quite a collection over the years which I still use. They're easy to store and carry, many prerecorded tapes can be bought dirt cheap at yard sales or second hand stores, and they are quite rugged as long as they're kept away from strong magnets. The tape players are also more rugged than CD players.
I just got a cassette player that someone was selling for very cheap on OfferUp and I couldn't resist. I've been dying for a way to listen to all my parents' old cassettes on an actual nice system, not just the old crappy boombox we have. What an experience, my parents have two Bob Marley and the Wailers cassettes and played through my -decent- system they sound incredible. Much warmer than CDs with more character (and much cheaper and easier to set up than a vinyl system). I'm definitely gonna go cassette digging next time I hit the thrift store. I'm sad to say it seems like the days are gone of people owning stuff. This new digital transformation is making it so that you are never the owner of anything. Want to watch TV shows or movies, monthly subscription. Want to listen to music, monthly subscription. Everything is a rental now, I think this is why I am getting so much more into older mediums because you actually own the things, potentially forever! I understand there is a level of convenience to all the new age digital stuff (I mean just look at how I'm broadcasting this message), but there is also a level of satisfaction that can't be matched.
I haven’t the slightest clue. But as a very modest “collector” of them myself (personally owning about 150 & counting) I selfishly pray the pattern of less people thinking about jumping back on the ‘cassette’ bandwagon continues. 😉
I started getting into casettes for a few reasons the first one was the feel, more complex than just throwing a song up on youtube, so you actualy want to listen to the music you have gone thru the effort of putting on, but also less delicate than records, you dont have to baby them. Second is the ability to tinker, but no requirement to, you can spend ages fucking about with settings and tape types, and stuff like that, or you can just stick something on and listen to it and its going to sound great either way third was the ability to record and rerecord your own stuff, unlike with records, so I can just record my own playlists onto tape, and dont have to worry about it being interupted, or internet issues, or ads, or anything. Tape goes in, music I want goes on with no bullshit.
@@Jordan-fn5rj why do some people drive sports cars and not just get a fuel efficient nisan or something, gets you the same place in the same amount of time because its fun, or different same reason people do anything past basic human needs
I was a teenager in the 80s so used cassettes and vinyl a lot. I hated the hiss, rumble, crackle, etc. I couldn't afford high end decks or tapes so was stuck with the sound quality they offered. When CDs came I was thrilled. Finally no hiss, crackle, dropouts, flutter, wow... Just silence and a stable speed. I did away with many of my records and tapes, though not all, for memories' sake. During the past decade I've rediscovered my old collection. Decent decks are pretty easy to come by on eBay and such. Now I enjoy playing both again. And now I don't mind the hiss and crackle, I even enjoy it: it sets it apart from other formats. The difference is: back then, it was just a means to listen to music, and it was the only means I had. So every scratch or dropout was there every listen again. Which was VERY annoying. Now, when I want to listen undisturbed I can just use Spotify or YT. So now, when I play a tape or record I do so deliberately because I WANT it to be that tape or record that delivers me the music. And then hiss or crackle only confirms that choice. Funny that when you can't have perfect you strive for perfection, while when perfect is freely available you strive for something that sets it apart in its imperfection.
this is a great video ! although the point about the tape lifespan being 30 years isn't exactly accurate, I personally have a tape from 1979-ish that still plays fine and even sounds pretty good, and I've heard lots of other similar experiences with old tapes. I believe there's even a vwestlife video actually testing it
The recording process was quite different between vinyl 33rpm records and pre-recorded commercial compact cassettes. The former were stamped individually from a press that was imprinted with the analog waveform of the original master tape. The latter were run off in faster-than-real time recording processes often multi-generation of tapes removed from the original master tape. They were often copied on cheap tape stock without Dolby or dbx noise reduction. As a result, most LPs sound better than most pre-recorded commercially manufactured cassettes. On the other hand, the cassette medium CAN have comparable fidelity; BUT ONLY by using a quality 3-head cassette with appropriate adjustments (bias, azimuth, etc.) and a quality tape formulation (type II or type IV) and recording the source in real time with well-set noise reduction. Most folks don't have the equipment or the interest/patience to get the most out of a cassette recording.
For me I always used cassettes. I'm a so called gen x-er. I had some records and some CDs back in the day but I liked to mess around and edit on audio tapes (attempting and failing ) to make Paul Hardcastle style sounds. The recordability of cassettes appealed to me and I also pretended to be a radio DJ playing my tracks commentating on friends playing sports etc. I only gave up cassettes when I had to get rid of bag loads of recorded on blank cassettes when I moved house about 13 years ago. And now I'm slowly getting back into it. Though I actually think mixing analogue cassettes and putting onto my PC to edit is the best of both worlds. Acts as a back up and allows for editing (keeping the analogue sound without filters).
I think what truly holds back cassette collecting and usage is the lack of quality playback hardware. There is not enough financial incentive (or potentially know-how) to create high quality cassette mechanisms that companies can use to create good players. Sony and many other manufacturers who might have the patents to create excellent decks or portable stereos aren't making them anymore, so you end up with the same low quality players using the same bare bones mechanisms that sound terrible. It's hard to recommend that someone get on eBay and learn all about 30 year old decks, take chances that they will be broken, find local repair shops if any, and spend hundreds of dollars in the process. I have 4 vintage cassette decks. 1 is non functional and i'm not going to invest in it. The other three are excellent and i'm spreading the wear and tear out between the three of them. I have 4 walkmen, 2 of which are barely functional, 1 is decent, 1 is good, and two small cheap boomboxes which are barely hanging in there. All in that was probably $600-$700 including repairs and audio cables. So it's a big investment that is not going to catch fire unless a large electronics company with the know-how to create good players decides to mass produce the Walkman again.
That said, the cassette is the anti-thesis to the disposable, you-actually-own-nothing digital streaming world we have today. You can take any audio source whatsover and create a mixtape. I can capture a cover of a song on TH-cam with 200 views and keep it forever, whether that video stays up or not. We can scoop up the ephemeral "content" of the internet and hold it in our hands in a physical object that will continue to sound great for 30-50 years.
I have over 22,000 cassettes, and have heard about half of them, all the way through. For over 30 years, collecting and listening has provided me an affordable and fulfilling pastime. In the early point of collecting- the first 500 or so- there could have been a switch to CD's however they were more expensive and remained so long after. A transient lifestyle made vinyl not a secure choice. I find that people who overly obsess about audio quality often don't open their ears up to noisier sounds and tend to think along binary, conservative terms, it's either good or bad music. It's not that the things they like are necessarily boring, but they often value safe, sanitized music, to fit their hi-fi safe, sanitized listening experience. Pop culture creating singing competitions has only furthered this narrow-mindedness. Not every tape I own even plays well; some are over 50 years old, and do play reasonably well. But, this format is quickly as it becomes obsolete due to the lack of decent players, taking on the curiousity of an historical artifact. At the same time I've transitioned from focusing on having more tapes than anyone, to having the best and rarest tapes- demos, promos, limited runs of odd things- and because it's music, it's enjoyed as such- but there's also the thrill of the hunt. Finding the cassette. Winning the auction. Seeing that it's shipped, and tracking the package. Opening the package. Finally listening to the music. And finally filing the tape into its new home. Every step of this releases some sort of dopamine for me, I'm sure. Now, most people will never have anything like this collection as it spans the fading of the format in the late 90's to its resurgence in the mid 2000's. Still there may be value for some particularly those who gave their collections away 25 years ago seeking nostalgia, or even their curious kids who might want to know what that last generation before computers was all about. To hear the cartridge slide into the door, close the door and push play (rewinding if needed.) I would pay no mind to those who simply judge an audio experience to be good or bad based on fidelity. That might be true for you too, but if you're like me and it's not, don't miss out on a different way to enjoy music. As for my collection, it's my dream to retire it as a listening experience in order to prevent covetous individuals who would be out to make money off of it, and instead have it join a museum of 20th century music formats, where in a large block form, thousands of titles can be displayed on a wall- not unlike the large record stores from which many of them were purchased.
As a thrifty music collector myself, I tend to stray from the cassette shelves. Varying degrees of quality is a constant on the secondhand market, I'm well aware; but with CDs and vinyl you can usually detect signs of wear fairly easily, be it scratches, dirt, etc. Such is not the case for tapes, unless you look at it with microscopic vision. This, combined with their general flimsiness and natural degradation, makes me wary of touching a cassette with anything less than a 10-foot pole.
I'm assuming you don't want to take up the space and spend the cash (which I totally respect). If you thrift a lot you should (I hate telling others to "should" btw) grab a cassette boombox or even a deck (which is the way better option IMO) to test whether or not you think they hold up. I really did love how professional you sounded when you said something about finding the right facility to test the theory. This video rocks by the way.
I actually almost bought a tape deck at a thrift store a few weeks ago! I am definitely considering purchasing one at some point. Are you into tapes and, if so, do you have any player recommendations or tips for what I should be looking for when thrifting? Thank you so much for watching as well (:
@@MusicTheoriesChannel May I throw in two conflicting considerations on cassette decks... 1. Seek the best engineering: top-of-the-line models, or something not-so-top-of-the-line from the "precious three" (Nakamichi, Studer, Tandberg). Oh well, Studer was only making TOTL decks, so it's down to Nak and Tandberg. 2. Seek the best mechanical condition. In the long run, a well-kept, low-mileage "average" deck may be a wiser choice. In my case, the absolutely best (and not that expensive) choice was a rebuilt Revox B215 bought from a trusted guy who rebuilds them for a living. A rare combination of both points above.
Cool video. I like your voice. Cassettes were my first audio format, being hewn in the 80's. I remember being excited by CDs, but once I got a CD player, I was really disappointed. Sure, skipping tracks was cool... but skipping was not. I couldn't walk around with a CD player and listen to music. I couldn't play it in my car while I was driving without it skipping. Oh my gosh, I left my CD in my visor holder and the face ripped off and it's ruined due to the heat; I dropped it and now it has a scratch and it skips 10 times on my favorite song. I think Minidisc impressed me more, but it was expensive and I guess patented(? like the 8track?) and ultimately failed to catch on. These days I do the bulk of my listening right here on YT+. I have a small vinyl collection. It's fun and interesting. Beautiful art. Mostly newer stuff, synthwave and techno. Some mix club vinyls (vinyl moon; love it but had to cancel for a while $). I'm like 25% nostalgic music and the rest is constantly evolving. I'm open to cassettes. I think they were a pretty good format. From what I understand one of the biggest issues is a lot of them were not produced on quality cassette tapes? Frankly, I have a lot of good memories, sitting by the radio waiting to catch a song and record it on cassette. Making mix tapes for myself and my friends and girls :) Certainly if you were playing on a home theatre, the sound quality of CDs was fresh and bright, but I could have done without them. AOL CDs made good coasters :D I think I would be fine if music were never on CDs, just data. My old CD collection is laying around but it's scratched and not nostalgic or special and I don't bother with it. On the other hand I still cherish my cassette mix tape from Mrs. S, that no longer plays since it wasn't a high quality cassette recording...
I’m twenty-six. I grew up driving old trucks with cassette players. And I liked the look of boomboxes. And the argument of vinyl vs digital piqued my interest. Cd makes me feel distant from the music. I cannot really immerse myself in it. Constantly adjusting the volume or skipping over songs. Same for when I’m listening to music on the iPhone. I feel irritated and tired after a few songs. Vinyl does have those added layers and nice sound quality, but in my personal opinion, it doesn’t have the power- the rawness that a cassette in a quality boombox possesses. Less cumbersome than a round-table too. All I gotta do is reach out from my bed to my radio on the nightstand to adjust settings.
Have thousands of dollars worth of high end audiophile equipement, only using flac and wav with dacs yet I find myself constantly coming back to the cassettes with my walkmans. Theres a certain warmth and tonal quality that you can only find with cassettes. The physicality and movement of its mechanisms makes you feel much more involved instead of just mindlessly pressing a touchscreen button, same goes for making a playlist where you have to do the recordings yourself. I guess that's the charm of cassettes and other forms of physical media. When you are always listening to hifi music it eventually becomes mundane. I also think people are going back to phyisical media because services are and have been revoking rights for playback regardless of purchasing or not. Its happening not just for music but movies and games where peoples digital licenses can be revoked suddenly.
I think that Cassettes are far cooler than CDs and would love to collect them instead as a cheaper alternative to Vinyl. However, nobody really makes them anymore, but they still make CDs. I'd love to see Cassettes make the same comeback that Vinyl did, as a compact mobil, and cheaper alternative to physical media music collecting. I'd start collecting tomorrow.
Cassettes can be fantastic. Their drawbacks are very similar to vinyl records, where the quality of the recording and the equipment they're being played on can make a huge difference. The cheaper your equipment, the worse overall listening experience you'll have. Each time you upgrade your equipment and speakers, you'll almost always hear the improvement in sound. In order to get the best possible playback equipment, you usually have to go vintage, and most affordable cassette decks just don't come close to the decks made in it's heyday. There are, however, many great options available for turntables and styli. The other factor is the quality of the tape itself. Music can shine on cassette when recorded properly on high bias Chrome and Metal tapes, while having drawbacks in audio quality when recorded on standard bias tapes. And unfortunately, you can't buy high bias cassettes brand new anymore, only the standard tape. I still love recording onto cassettes from my record collection like I did when I was a kid. And I fortunately kept all of my blank high bias tapes, and have a great 1978 Pioneer CT-F700 deck to play them on, so everything sounds really good. However, in my opinion, cassettes will never have a revival like the vinyl record has until the consumer level equipment and the quality of recording tape improves.
The cons of cassettes are endless. Don't forget how the track listings of albums were always in a random order to fit all the songs on the tape. Nothing like your favourite album being jumbled up.
Which type of audio player did you grow up using?
One of my oldest memories is riding around in my dad's work truck (he worked for Budweiser XD) listening to his collections of old Irish tunes on cassette. For some reason I really enjoyed Jolly Tinker by Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers haha!
When people start collecting CDs the ways they collect vinyls and cassette, that's when I know my childhood has become retro and I'm old. 🤣
🤣🤣🤣 same
I'm a huge jazz CD collector...and cassettes
Hey I'm already at that stage!
Lots of remastered CDs for chewing gum values everywhere...
Cheers from 🇵🇹
@@TigerBoyRS cheers! It’s official then, I’m old Lol 🤣
They do. CDs still outsell vinyle & cassettes (not necessarily in value because vinyl is expensive but certainly in unit numbers).
I really believe that each format has a culture all its own. Cassette culture is very rich and even contains subcultures within based on genre; for example cassettes were important to hip hop in the 80s and 90s much how cassettes were important to metalheads and punk fans. There's just something about cassettes, from the color of the tape, the photos and lyrics within the j-card, it just makes for great analog packaging of music and creates an experience separate but still parallel to vinyl and CD.
Love this comment!
I prefer cassettes. Those were the days I'd really listen to music, hear every song and really connected with the music. When CDs arrived that's when I'd start skipping and going straight to the hits, ect. Streaming is even worse.
true, but without digital I wouldn't be able to experience daft punk for the first time. And having someone's playlist they spent years on is an experience
As somone who only just got into cassetes i love the sound of the end off cassettes where it goes from a hiss which stops on each channle and then you hear the deck make a *click* and a *clunk* and then silence. Honestly is like watching a really good movie where your just sit back in the credits and go "wow... that was nice".
I know that feeling well!!
Decent cassettes sound incredibly well with a high end deck, but even with a cheaper one. I have a lot of old tapes from the 90s made on East-german "HiFi". When I put them in a new TASCAM deck my jaw dropped! I had in my mind that hissing boom box sound. But they sound really good! Even after 25 years!
With an upper class deck (in my case AIWA AD-F810) and decent cassettes (TDK SA, BASF Chrome Super II, Denon) you'll get results you will not believe if you don't hear it! Even without Dolby virtually no hiss. If you don't tell somebody that's tape he'll think it's from CD!
When tape disappeared in the early 2000 that technology was mature and at a final point. It couldn't get better any more. Digital music was and is more convenient. But the sound often isn't better. Even with high bit rates.
You can put thousands of tapes on an USB stick and the sound is ok. The quality will stay that way. That's it!
If you like music and sound, sooner or later you want something to grab on. Vinyl or tape. This imperfect analog hardware that makes music come to life ...
Wow! I DEFINITELY want to get a quality cassette deck after reading this comment 😃😃 thank you so much for sharing!
@@MusicTheoriesChannel ;) I'm proud that I made you curiuos!
Half a year ago I saw a video about a new TASCAM deck. Than I saw my dozens of tapes laying around. Well, I gave it a try!
Next step I bought some really good old decks on ebay. When they are in good condition they are much better than the newer ones.
If you find a cheap deck that cost more than 500 or 1000 bugs 20 years ago you couldn't go wrong.
If I had known that I hadn't bought the new TASCAM!
You are right. I am a professional vintage audio repair tech, and I have two decks at home, a Teac A-303 (middle of the line, from 1974) and a Pioneer CT-F900 (near the top of Pioneer's line in 1977-78). The Teac sounds good with prerecorded tapes in good condition, but the three-head Pioneer can sound amazingly good. I'm not ready to compare it to uncompressed digital, but it's amazing how far the format came from its introduction in 1963 as a monophonic dictation medium with a frequency response of about 100-6,000 Hz. Keep in mind that NO cassette deck (or other analog tape deck) will sound its best unless it is cleaned after every two to ten hours of play, demagnetized after every 100 hours or so, and unless it is professionally checked and adjusted once every year or two.
Not sure your USB stick files will stay that way. USB sticks don't seem stable. Hard drives last around 5 years and then crash. The cloud is OK so long as you maintain your subscription but only because the companies are constantly replacing their drives as they fail. I still have 40 year old cassette tapes that sound good and also CDs around 35 years old that play perfectly. Vinyl of course goes on even longer if not subject to physical damage.
Yess,well put! I got AIWA ADF-770, and sweet is the sound. From kentucky to here at Finland. Way wrong voltage,but transformer got it right.
People who think cassettes are lo-fi haven’t used a quality deck. Metal tape encoded with Dolby S or DBX has a better dynamic range and frequency response than CD. Even prerecorded type 1 tapes are better to me than CD, but I prefer all analog formats over digital
A very famous TH-camr once said about vinyl “It’s not about the sound quality. It’s about the vibe quality.”
Makes sense to me!
I love pre-recorded music on cassette. Less hassle than the ritual of wiping static from a record and cleaning the stylus before playing. Especially dig the clunk and whir of the cassette deck buttons when you press rewind and play. I’m a fam of most formats though including CDs and streaming. It’s all music anyway.
that's the ticket! love this comment
I’m a fan of most formats expect 8-track and streaming. In my opinion digital audio is just awful
Vinyl will never die. The number of times a new format comes a long but vinyl never disappear, never.
I've started making the transition to vinyl again after all these years (I grew up with it). My reasons are a combination of all of the things said here. I like the warmth of the sound. I like the ritual. I the larger size of the album cover and sleeve and that there is a lot of information on it that is completely absent from digital streaming. I like that there is a connection between me and the physical music.
Love that! Thanks for sharing!
Dear Tape Lovers,
Greetings from India. Middle aged or senior citizens who are tape addicts will appreciate and comprehend that the analogue tapes from BASF, TDK, SONY & AXIA if recorded from good source and on a decent tape deck from Technics (965, AZ7, TR777 & 979), Nakamichi (DR-10) and Sony (ES) series (I have such models) may easily surpass the vinyl any day. Using a recording for commercial use may be a crime but for personal use has always been legal.
Agreed, that a tape recording can never sound better than source but the ability of tapes to be recorded in limitless options can satisfy the appetite of most demanding audiophiles. Settings of Bias, Treble and Vocals is limitless with a good tape deck and if you may get hold of some good DAC such as RME DAC ADI-2 FS or a streamer like new Arcam ST60, try recording a contemporary track and you will be stunned with the output of a Chrome or Metal tapes. The hiss is what makes it special, but if you scorn the same, playing tape on any good deck, even without any sound suppressing options such as Dolby or DBX, the hiss sound is nearly non-existent. Music sounds more melodic and warmer on tape, more than vinyl. Not that vinyl is bad either. They both are tangible and much warmer compared to best digital music from any digital source.
All you need is some good money and some luck to find a tape deck and invest a little in blank tapes, what you will hear will certainly make you realise, what you have been missing in music so far in life.
Long Live Tape and Long Live Music.
The thing with sound quality is you can always do better - regardless of the format you're using. On decent (but not expensive) equipment, I listen to (and still buy) CDs, cassettes, MP3s, and LPs without worrying the comparative differences. I remember people in the early 1990s dumping their record collections only to regret it later. Today, people are dumping entire CD collections for a couple hundred bucks. That's the big point to focus on with physical formats right now: CDs are the most durable, convenient, easy to transport, and easy-to-digitize. They are also the easiest format to find and the cheapest to buy.
I love both vinyl and cassettes!!
CDs will make a huge comeback down the road.Why?Whats old always becomes new again.Plus, the Cassettes collectors today,who are still collecting cassettes, will inspire future cassette collectors to keep collecting cassettes of tomorrow.👍Cassettes are still fun to collect and it all comes down to how you the cassette collector, store ur cassettes and how you handle them.If you take good care of ur cassettes and treat them right, your cassettes will definitely take care of you.They said cassettes are only good for 30 some years? Well how come my cassettes are still playing today?And alot of my cassettes are way over 30 years old.Always keep ur cassettes in a safe environment.Meaning out of the sunlight or moldy basements, or hot atics.Always rewind ur cassette after playing them.Store away properly.😃👍God bless cassettes and CDs.😀👍✌❤
I have to agree with you! I think CDs will make a comeback at some point. There's been a recent uptick in the glorification of the early 2000's so we shall see 😆
@@MusicTheoriesChannel Yes ,we shall see.🙂👍
Each format has its own use.
Records have high sound quality, also, they are not affected by magnetic fields.
Reel to reel tape is good for preserving records (record a brand new record to tape, then listen to that tape instead of wearing out the record). Also, I can have long playing tapes (up to 3 hours per side), so I need to flip/change them less often compared to records. I can also record the songs I want to a tape, not necessarily from a record I own (a borrowed recording, the radio etc).
Cassettes are similar to reel to reel tapes, with the difference that they are a bit lower quality and shorter maximum playing time, but cheaper and portable, so I can play my music in my car or just outside. Also, at least where I live, a lot of music (that I like) was released on cassette only.
Best part I like about tapes is, I can fine-tune them when recording, making them sound LOUDER SHARPER and CLEANER than CD's and Especially MP3's!
Thanks for sharing!
I like how cassettes are smaller and usually cheaper than Vinyl. I also love how they have end labels, making them more displayable on a shelf. And, with the right equipment, they can sound amazing. The only downside is that some tapes warp or wear out and aren't really playable anymore, but they're cheap enough to replace when that happens.
All great reasons to love them!
The 'machine eats tape' story mostly comes from cheap tapes used in cheap car stereos. These decks are very low quality, and due to being installed in a car, which rattles around, is exposed to humidity and heat and maybe even people smoking inside the car, the dirty mechanism caused the tape to get stuck. Also, I'm not so sure about what you said about longevity of tape. I have cassettes from my dad which are almost 40 years old and they sound perfect, indistinguishable from a CD, whereas some of my vinyl records I bought second hand can sound very muffled on sections that have been played very often.
Nevertheless, great video!
Makes sense! Got this info from various sources (linked) and not from my own experience, so you could very well be right about the longevity. Thanks for watching!
Yeah definitely depends on how much your spend, $13 tape player on Amazon is gonna sound awful and eat your tapes. Just like record players, if you buy a $50 dollar record player it’s gonna be made of plastic and slow. I used to have one of those cheap cassette players and it ate my Rod Stewart tape :( But now I have a Sony Walkman and a JVC boombox with cd and radio functions and it sounds amazing and has never ate a tape. About the lifespan of tapes, I have many 30-50 year old tapes and sound wonderful still. I have my one of my grandpas Fleetwood Mac tapes almost being 50 years old and my grandpa said he used to play it every day for years, still sounds amazing. As for what sounds better I would say Cassettes are better, With vinyl you might be able to hear a bit of stuff you can’t hear on cassette, but of course the surface snap crackle pop makes cassette take the lead. Cassettes are more portable, way more portable, but records are fun to look at when your watching it spin.
@@johnoofsatchurch SuperiorTape. With good tape and deck or portable walkman deck,you hear all the nyances from cassette. Chrome or metal tape.
Glad to hear someone else who understands cassette recorded analog media for the purpose and warmth of it. I had to recently throw out all my CD's that I made in the 2010's. They just would not work in any player anymore. It's like they where slowly being erased over time losing data and skipping. I still have plenty of personal cassettes i made years before and they ALL still work fine. The cassette deck I made them on died but it was easy to buy a refurbished cassette deck from eBay from a reputable buyer who repairs mostly tape decks. The tapes sound as good as day one and are 15to 20 years older than the CD's. If you want to store your audible memories do it on a cassette tape. They will still be around years from now and so will the equipment to play them on. My oldest cassette is over 54 years old and still plays. I think that is enough for a lifetime and then some for whoever to discover it. My outdoor time capsule tape (Maxell UR 90 clear shell) was buried in the soil in a zip lock bag in an air tight container 30 years ago and still plays just as it did when new. Try that with a CD or MP3 player and see if they still work.
Very interesting!
Toronto Canada AKA The 6ix🇨🇦
Great topic love the reasoning
I've been a DJ for years now and I grew up on cassettes vinyl and CDs📀 but my daughter who is now 14 and some of her friends are crazy about vinyl and cassettes! My kid has a cassette tape collection which is pretty impressive👌🏽She's a big fan of Motown, Disco & Old school hip hop and loves Billie eilish which she also has on cassette tape I asked her why is this such a big deal to have them on Old school cassette🤔 she tells me because it sounds warmer to her ears she says these days everyone is in a rush 😒 and digital music is sharp and quick but with analog it makes you take the time to listen to the instruments and vocals in a relaxing way...😏Great Channel keep up the good work!💯
I love that you’re both into music and can share that enthusiasm from different perspectives! I think it’s pretty cool that newer artists like Billie Eilish are releasing music on different formats as well. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
A well recorded Metal tape on a high-end deck always sounds much nicer to me than an LP. And yeah, far cheaper and convenient. Cool video.
I'd love to hear that sometime. I actually have a friend in multiple touring metal bands, and I have a few of their cassettes. all I need is the right deck! thanks so much for watching (:
@@MusicTheoriesChannel Np. There's a few Nakamichi decks floating around on Ebay lately at reasonably inexpensive prices, bid or buy now.
I want to add that I think you have a soothing voice, as well. And your videos are edited nicely. Keep it up.
@@deckofcards87 haha thank you! that is so nice☺️ and I will definitely check ebay, thanks for the heads up!
@@MusicTheoriesChannel It is the tape that is metal, not the music. It is coated with metal particles, to be precise. Type IV metal tape is not manufactured anywhere now. They can be played on any tape deck, but can only be recorded on machines capable of the very high bias level needed.
As for buying cassette machines, many made in the late nineties to end of production in the early 00's, that are classed by audiophiles as "entry level" are absolutely excellent. Nakamichi are one such make, but a bit expensive due to the name, so look for others such as Yamaha and Denon. Typical prices at auction now for a clean, working machine now are under $100 USD. A low-end Nakamichi will be about double this, and only platinum-plated audiophiles with silver cables and fairy dust can tell the difference. ;-)
On tapes themselves, the fate of many was death by faulty hardware. Moreover, pre-recorded ones were often made using cheap stock, and duplicated badly at high speed on worn out machines, which gave them a bad reputation. Nevertheless, I have some high-quality classical music tapes more than thirty years old which still work perfectly.
@@cdl0 amazing comment! thank you so much for contributing. loving hearing from people who know so much about cassettes!
Another really interesting and informative video! Cannot wait to see more of these. I also love the thumbnail!
Got them all! And all of them can still move your soul in different ways.
Certainly some formats are stuck with a specific generation (LP's and 8-tracks on 70-80's, cassettes on 90's and Cds by the mid-end 90's) but the average collector admires the aspect of holding onto something while the listening experiences goes with every listening you get on your favourite format.
Cassettes are special, since with most home devices of the time, you could record your fav song from the radio or just add another one and do a personal mix and put it while you drive on holidays or anywhere (maybe the beginnings of the playlists?).
One thing is sure, each hold its ground up until today! Still see and know about several Deadheads still listening their cassette tapes.
I can't resist to listen a Blu-Ray in Hi-Res or with a 5.1mix (Steven Wilson's are surely the ones to get on this department) but to grap an LP, put it on and just lay down and let that music blow your mind is quite the experience anyone can enjoy.
My favourite way to listen to music is actually the Minidisc, which has almost CD quality sound but with the sturdiness and durability of a cassette, especially for portable players or car head units. Also the fact you can edit the discs yourself on your equipment with the touch of a button, to cut tracks perfectly of a continuous live recording you made yourself for example, using nothing more than your home deck or portable recorder, without having to rip or capture it to a computer to edit there. The antishock mechanism is also perfect for portable and car units, making it virtualñy impossible to make a track jump at all... And all in a very compact and easy to handle design.
Personally, I love all physical mediums. Each one has its own pros and cons as you described really well, so great job. If I were to add something to your analysis, I think one could make an argument that certain genres of music are not really well suited for tape (I'm talking the portable players here), while others can be straight up just fun to listen to on tape. For me, I've got some old Jim Croce tapes that remind me of my dad and him playing guitar, so listening to those tapes are really fun for the nostalgia. Also certain genres that are sonically busy can drown out the hiss that comes from tape. I feel like tape really suffers with music that really needs quiet and loud moments (e.g. classical would probably not be fun to listen to on tape unless you have an amazing tape deck). Anyway, that's my two cents. Thanks for the analysis.
I love that you brought up emotional connection. If you spent so much time listening to tape with your dad, the tape will undoubtedly make you feel close to him and that’s a reason to collect in and of itself!
Cassettes have always been my thing. I’ve picked up hundreds of unspooled tapes when they used to be out along the streets and roads and would put them all back together and play them.
Sound quality wasn’t my big concern. I just enjoyed hearing what was on them as cast away sounds. To this day I’ll hear a clean clear recording of a song and remember some of the unique wrinkled areas, stretches, and spots where the song was broke in two ( or many pieces depending on the condition of the tape ).
I played some broken tapes enough times for those damaged areas to set deep in my mind. Of course with all that scotch tape, I had be sure to clean my boom box’s capstan, pinch roller and head often.
I disagree with the 30-year lifespan of cassettes, I have tapes that are 35+ and they still sound perfect.
That's great! Is there anything specific you do, maybe storage-wise or something, to maintain their good condition?
@@MusicTheoriesChannel Not really, just keep them away from magnets, and keep them in a casette case when not in use.
ANA[DIA]LOG on re-lubing your tapes. It works. Check it out.
I collect Audio Compact Cassette Tapes! Have over 4,000 Different Types Styles Colours Brands of Cassettes in my collection. Not to mention, never stopped recording audio on Cassettes, still do till this day, since you can buy blank tapes at almost any store today. Audio Compact Cassette Tapes remain my number one format for music Reproduction.
Wow! 4,000!
I love cassette because it makes me remember my father because he loves to collect cassette, walk me to the cassette store and grab something that he or I like, and I think I was raised near the end of the cassette era. Now after finishing my collage, I start to collect cassette again, because I couldn't afford one before.
Recently I bought an old Player and some Japanese song record. I'm not really comparing about the sound quality but, I think that doesn't really matter as long I enjoy the content of it. But I guest you can't really compare Vinyl and Cassette sound quality because, the one that release on the market are using the Type I Cassette instead of Type IV (that have low noise with a CD like sound quality).
For me, having a physical copy of a song or album that you love is there was some satisfaction that you can't describe.
My opinion is if you really aiming for sound quality or audio fidelity, you sound go for high end digital audio. In this old media, you will find hiss or noise (Cassette) and popping or crackling sound (Vinyl). You can't really get a clean audio from it.
But just like the ending, "Do what you want". Love it.
What a sweet memory 🥺 I couldn't agree more; there's definitely more to music than sound quality sometimes. Thank you so much for sharing that!
That's why I love Bandcamp right now. Any purchase of a physical album grants you access to the digital in any format including lossless.
Also shout-out to the We Are Rewind cassette player that recently got hated into oblivion. Yes the motor noise is apparent but the thing is solidly built and sounds great, is SUPER convenient, and although not designed to be portable you can place some rubber feet from Amazon on the bottom and then set it anywhere. It costs quite a bit but it's worth it imo. And it records and plays in stereo. That alone is amazing nowadays.
Bandcamp is great!
I collect Cassette tapes and what i enjoy the most is the bootleg market... Sometimes i find fan made versions of albums that are better than the original version, with a better art, including posters and even bonus tracks (like in deluxe Editions).
I mean, isn't a cassette exclusive but i see that the cassette collectors enjoy the fan made versions and support the production.
Cassettes are portable, has that lo-fi quality that many people enjoy (of couse, it depends on the gear) and are cheap, you can buy great albums way more cheaper than CDs or Vinyls and still has the analogue charm.
Buy a nakamichi cassette deck for your cassettes, it'll blow your cds out of the water in terms of sound quality
There's something special about tape!!!
For me, the most defining characteristic of a Vinyl record is the fact that don't require ANY source of electricity to play, but it does definitely help if you do and good luck finding an old player that does it's thing with only the stored potential energy of a spring and acoustic sound enhancement
Well in all seriousness how many use that? Probably less than 0.1%.
@@Magisktification 0.1% of people over 70 I'm guessing
@@mouldypretzel Would be pretty neat to have such a device 👍
Cassettes can sound great if you have a good deck and, ironically, if you record your own rather than buying commercially dubbed cassettes. They're objectively even "warmer" than vinyl. However commercial music cassettes were dubbed _en masse_ at really low quality, aimed at teens like me who played them back on cheap Walkmans and boomboxes where it just didn't matter that much. If audiophiles used magnetic media at all they stuck strictly to very expensive "reel to reel" tape machines. But if you have some good quality Type IV blanks and record your own, dubbing in real time from the source with Dolby B noise reduction implemented properly, audio cassettes can actually sound quite wonderful. One issue nowadays is that literally nobody makes quality new cassette decks anymore &nobody makes high quality Type II & Type IV blank cassettes either so you're stuck with second-hand products or "new-old" stock of wildly varying quality.
In the 80's I prefered vinyl because of the booming sound and huge sleeves (and when they were glossy and not matte) they were a joy to touch and almost to smell.
But my sister preferred tapes because they were smaller and because they didn't wear, the sound remained pretty much the same at every listen not like vinyl who would degraded with every listen. Those were our arguments in the family back in the day.
Today we both love CD's for their durability (my first CD bought in 1992 is still in mint condition, pretty much) and the sound without wear is remarquable. Plus the CD instant track random access is surely a plus.
But eventually both of us appreciate now MP3's more because we can carry them everywhere (in our cars on flash drives or in our phones and computers when we travel).
There are definitely pros and cons for every format! Thank you for sharing your memory and thoughts!
I think many are overlooking the elephant in the room.
How many people do you know personally that own their own record lathe?
I think some do not hold cassettes with the same regard as vinyl because you can't record onto vinyl.
Lacquer master blanks are expensive and lathes are hundreds of times more expensive.
A record can be seen as something never done by a "layman" and scene as always professionally produced.
I love all three, for me its like a tangible things. Plus i was born in 03. I still remember vhs at Hollywoodvideo. Plus the thing I also like about collecting them all is that they fill different roles. Records for when you aren't really going anywhere, Tape for when you want a analog sound but limited on space or time plus you can pick it up again where you left off, and CD for convenience. They all should be loved and people respected for collecting what they love, be it looks or any other reason.
Agreed!
I hope cassettes make a huge comeback I love collecting 8tracks vinyl and tapes yes it is very addicting
whoa!! I have never heard someone say that they collect 8-tracks! Are they hard to come by??
@@MusicTheoriesChannel at the thrift store where I live now I did buy the last of what they had out though
@@MusicTheoriesChannel I have two portable 8-track players and three other ones two of which needs belts the portable ones work great just need to find a plug in for the solid-state when I have
I also collect VHS tapes
Been into tapes (and vinyl) for 40+ years (and about 30 years into CD's, used MIniDisc in the late 90s too)... NEVER EVER had a tape eaten by the equipment. I have more CD's that are unplayable due to CD rot, or even vinyl records (even though I love them) that skipped right out of the factory because the grooves literally were too close together (even I should admit that on a few thousand it's less than 10 albums that have that problem). So I keep asking myself: what crappy equipment or tapes have people used to primarily remember tapes being eaten by the player, or even winding cassettes with a pencil (since all pencils in Belgium are too small to even do that - even during the haydays of cassette: the 1980s, we used to use a specific model of - very cheap - ballpoint pen to do that). But I just like cassettes (not the prerecorded ones) because it has a lot of the advantages of vinyl (yes it is High Fidelity, if you use good cassettes and invest in good equipment - no need for super expensive -, but it's also a tactile format, and even more conventient in use than vinyl). Even with pretty basic Dolby C the tape hiss is minimal, and with Dolby S it's hardly noticeable. But still, if I'd wanted digital, I'd use it (and I often do, too).
It's so funny to me how split people are on the decks eating the tape 😆its definitely likely that a lot of people were simply using cheaper machinery! all the comments on this video have really inspired me to want to find a quality deck to give cassettes a fair shot.
On that note, how would we identify a nice tape deck? What are the hallmarks and how can you be smart in your search? I'm interested.
@@commondog3956 My opinion is that a decent deck does not have to be a three head, two motor, amorphous head and very expensive deck. Of course those decks will have some advantages. But whatever mid-range and higher deck from the late eighties and early nineties from a reputable maker will probably be a decent deck. It might (and probably will) need some new rubber parts and general revision of the mechanical parts (and perhaps even part of the electronics).
If budget is a limitation: I have very good experiences with "normal" cassettes the Pioneer CT-S450S for instance (which is hardly a high end or high tech deck, but then again: normal tapes are not high end either). I tend to choose for non autoreverse, single decks. Dolby C as minimum noise reduction. I like the later Pioneer BLE technology (or Auto BLE or Super BLE, or what ever they have called their automatic Bias, Level and EQ calibration). Other brands will probably have similar capabilities. You could go high tech, high price as well...
Just look at the reviews (there are several forums around that focus on that). And... most importantly: enjoy what you're doing.
@@NicoDeclerckBelgium This is all solid info I'm writing down. Thanks so much, Nico!
I mainly collect cassette tapes(cause i grew up using the format, and the sound is amazing to my ears even with the hiss. I haven't had any issues with them. (I have auto-reverse deck, so i don't have to get up and flip the tape myself.) I also record my spotify playlist onto some good quality Maxell chrome tapes and TDK tapes. And then i collected CD's. Also about the hiss..there's Dolby Noise Reduction, which lower the hiss, and no tapes can last 50 years if taken care of properly. Trust me i have tapes from the 70's that still sound like new.
I love this comment! Can I ask what deck you have?
People do not collect cassettes because they naturally degrade over time. The tape just breaks. You can do whatever you can to keep your records from scratching and warping, but a casette tape can break just from being used.
A lot of people would agree!
I have a huge cassette collection and know others who do. You need to get out more.
Woah, great video! Saw in recommended and after watching shocked to see how many subs u have (Id thought you'd be a big channel like techmoan). Definitely subbing and I recently started collecting cassettes in the past 3 months, up to about 60 rn because how cheap they are that's why I started buying them. Also going into record stores some good albums will just sit there because not a lot of people are looking for cassettes which makes it better for me lol.
What an amazing compliment! Thank you so much for the support. I'll be uploading again very soon (:
I actually have also picked up a few cassettes since making this video and I was shocked at how many amazing albums I could find for $3 and under...I couldn't agree more!
I Listen to Compact Cassette Tapes on a Daily Basis, And They Still Sound Amazing Crisp Clear. I have Cassettes From 1968, Which Still Sound Good. I Don't Remember Having Any Problems With Compact Cassette Tapes.
Thanks for sharing!
It is indeed very convenient and easy in today's time to listen to music because of the music streaming platforms brought to us by the internet. There is no need to individually purchase each album or single of your favorite artists. By simply paying a subscription fee, you can listen to any music you desire. However, despite the modern way of listening to music, you still long for the physical record that may deteriorate over time but holds memories of the past, especially of your youth. Having a collection of records is a testament to your love for the art of music, and while buying albums of your favorite artists may have been expensive, there were plenty of options available due to the thriving music industry, as artists used to earn more from records back then than they do now.
I learned that their were 3 different classes of the pellets used to make the record . Some has the highest quality that when you pulled it out of the inner sleeve it would have no dust lint from the sleeve. BUCK OWENS GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2.Fit this so well the record looked brand new. The sound was as equally awesome. Records are better than tapes but are more easily damaged. Tapes had wrapups more to poor quality players than being bad tapes.You can argue which is best. Records are better with tapes a close second. I like the tapes because many used the high end tape to make the recording match the record quality. This was started in the 1980s to boost sales because of the Walkman being a hit with terrible battery life. That's another story 😎
I know for a fact cassette tapes last 40 + years. I have pre-recorded cassettes from the late 1970's and blank cassettes that I recorded vinyl albums as far back as 1981 that still sound great. I shouldn't say the pre-recorded tapes sound "Great". The quality got much higher by the mid-1980's. Cassettes like Princes "Around the World in a Day" & Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" are excellent quality recordings.
I like cassettes, I don't know why. I could say that is the portable experience of listenning a full album, but I do it with digital music too. I have a big collection of digital CD quality FLAC music, have vinyl, but I like cassettes.
I like that you have a little bit of everything, but still know your preference (:
When I was a kid cds were what was popular at the time. Cassettes were still widely sold and cars didn't really have CD players in them yet. I had a portable tape and cd player. As an adult I listen to several forms such as vinyl, CD, and digital. I think as far as convenience goes digital will always win because you can get it on your phone, TV, and computer. I do also collect a lot of vinyl because I like the sound and the large artwork and jackets that come with them.
The argument that cassettes didn't sound as good as 8 tracks doesn't sound right to me. While it's true that cassete decks with Dolby were expensive over the years the price fell dramatically. In 1993 I bought a nice Kenwood dual tape deck for about $150. A very reasonable price. And I still have some of the recordings I made it to this day. If I've said it once I've said it a million times. A good recording needs 3 things. 1. The knowledge to make a decent recording. 2. A decent quality tape. 3. A decent deck. Unlike 8 tracks a cassette won't interrupt your song to change channels. And cassettes are making a comeback.
I think cassettes get bashed on for sounding bad because the average person probably wasn't taking great care of them. Even if the tapes just sat in a car, temperature changes throughout the days/months/years would slowly mess it up. Vinyl records rarely left the house compared to tapes, so they were probably cared for better.
And that's not even talking about all the poor quality tapes and bad recordings people would've made as amateurs.
For me it's not about sound or aesthetic.
It's about just being able to hold the albums I love in my hands and listen to them off the physical albums when I'm in the mood to. Just feeling closer to the music that I love.
But sound? I'm not an audiophile at all, I don't really care. I just love music and I appreciate the difference in audio quality, to me there is no "better" or "worse" sound quality. It's all great for different reasons.
And the aesthetic? I mean... sure I love looking at them but literally nobody I know in person likes my music, so it's not going to spark any conversations.
At first, I got into collect cassettes as a joke lol, my friend buys rare coloured vinyl exclusively, more for the collectors mentality, so as a joke I found a brightly coloured cassette tape in a record store and started mocking him and bought it cause it was cheap and I could stick it in my pocket 😂
I was always into 80s video games and tech anyway so once I had nothing to play my new tape in I instantly got a deck and tape set up and now I exclusive buy physical music releases on tape, fell in love the the clunk of the buttons when you press play and having to actively get up and turn to side b makes me focus on the music more 😁
I love cassete tapes :)
Theyre a lot better than people realize
I collect both! Love buying new cassettes and collecting cassette decks
There's hiss on vinyl as well though ... EVERY analogue format degrades over time. Aside from that amazing video !
For sure! Thanks for bringing that up. From what I gathered in my research, sooo many people tend to cite "tape hiss" as a reason to NOT collect tape, but I don't think I saw it mentioned once as a reason to not collect vinyl. So weird!
oh, and thank you! (:
@@MusicTheoriesChannel Vinyl lovers are a little overprotective sometimes haha I would know lol I'm a sound engineer and can assure you that there is hiss in vinyl recordings as well and have audio clips to prove it. Amazing video btw keep it up :)
@@duochannel256 Awesome! I'm certainly not a sound engineer, but have definitely heard it myself as well. Thanks for watching!
Bands were mastered on tape in the recording studios back in the day.They would cut the record off that master. So yes, tape can sound really good. They can sound better than vinyl.
Reasons why I collect Vinyl:
1. Ownership - In a world that’s moving towards rented access for everything, it’s nice to own something for a change again.
2. Mastering Quality - Vinyl prints haven’t succumbed to the loudness war/dynamic compression problem. This is where the sound quality arguments come from, all modern Vinyls start as digital masters so the analog argument is moot, they’re simpler balanced better and avoid compression clipping.
Ownership is a massive reason people have jumped back on the bandwagon for physical media, a lot of people are tired of every company moving to monthly subscriptions whether they realise it or not.
Good point!
I destroyed and re recorded too many cassettes when i was a child. I guess i will start getting some vinyls since i never experienced that.
I love the sound when you close the deck and press play
Nice video :) I don't know how I would see the cassette if I was young nowadays, but with my user experience from vinyls, cassettes, CD, MD, and smartphones, I find cassettes to have features still relevant today, including the infamous tape hiss if you're ASMR-sensitive ;) [note : I still use my phone most of the time, which is a bit of a shame actually because it means I became lazy ;) ]
Of course I'm not saying cassettes are the one and only "grail medium" but it can be a good option to consider if you're curious or, like me, enjoy the fun of interacting with it.
Depending on the hardware, sound quality can be very good, not bad enough to be a problem today, especially given the built quality of default earphones you get with most devices XD.
Some hardware not easily affordable in the past are today (excluding really iconic devices suffering from grotesque speculation on eBay) and we can get better sound quality now (but don't use USB walkmans for quality ^^).
It's a resilient medium, as even when part of the tape is eaten you can still repair it (with just scissors and adhesive tape) and limit the disaster. Scratches on the surface are less likely to happen than on a CD and what you'll lose with age is basically frequency range, but you'll still be able to read the media, even if the quality went bad. Scratches on a CD or vinyl are less forgiving, and a data error on a file can make the entire track unreadable more easily. And hard disc disaster *does* exists (and as we witnessed a few monthes ago, even datacenters *do* burn down).
Something to consider too is the durability of the players/recorders, portable cassette units usually runs with standard AA our AAA batteries, and models using a gumstick battery by default have a battery adaptor included, so more freedom on power supply. That said, belts and capacitors are a weak point.
Also, operations are easy, and no buttons get locked for the amount of time required by unwanted ads. And no privacy data mining :) Oh, and they even work without network !
Hardware buttons (on most walkmans) are usually recognisable by touch and you can operate the device with a minimal loss of focus.
I think the reason people look down on cassettes today is because of their bad memories with them. Unless you were rich or had rich parents, you were stuck with a cheap Walkman or radio/cassette player, which contained cheaper mechanisms that put out inferior sound quality, and had the tendency to eat tapes. Put a tape in a Walkman and then into a high end deck like a Nakamichi or Technics, and I guarantee you that you’ll be amazed by the difference.
this is a great point!!
I've recently started collecting cassettes and despite knowing that the sound quality won't be as crisp as vinyl or as convenient as digital; the enjoyment I get from finding new music, different songs and making my own mixtapes makes them worthwhile for me. I love learning more about the things I enjoy and cassettes have been at the forefront, but I'm enjoying the various music formats my parents and even grandparents enjoyed, which is a plus in my eyes.
In the 70's when I bought a new album, I used to record it on to cassette on it's first play and still pristine. No dust, little or no static, no scratches etc. The album would then go away and stay perfecto. I could listen to the album on my hifi system or in the car, with no concerns about damage, because I had the perfect back up. Often after listening to it, I would decide I only bought it for the single and did not like the album. As the LP was still unblemished I got a much higher resale. When CDs came along I got into that genre too, but held on to the LP's. Then came mini disc, my LP's came out yet again and were recorded on to those and my cassette player in the car and walkman were replaced.
Along came MP3 then FLACs and another recycle with next recording of my 33's, but then what was the point of keeping them after that? I sold my Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference for a decent profit after owning it for 40 years. I now source my music from a SSD hard drive, via a Blu Ray player into a Yamaha amplifier and then on to my current speakers. Their technology is much the same after all this time.
However. Did I enjoy Meddle - Pink Floyd on LP, of course. On cassette, yes. On mini disc, too right. On CD excellent. MP3 was ace and FLAC may be better, but my ears are 68 years old now and therefore untrustworthy. I even enjoy it, played badly, by ear, on my guitar or piano. It is not the format that counts, but what you are listening to.
Oh and I rarely listen to music in my car now, it's mostly audio books on MP3 at 96 - 128 kbs. Music is for my stereo hi fi system only.
I still use cassettes on a high-quality player. Let me tell you when people listen to them, they always tell me that the quality is better than streaming. Use quality cassettes and a quality player, and you'll have a quality listening experience.
I appreciate your input! I'd love to have a quality deck someday and be able to access that quality sound you're talking about. Unfortunately, even though streaming can be a decrease in audio quality, its, overall, more accessible to the everyday listener.
For me the main issue with cassettes is durability they can mold easily and wear with use muck quicker than vinyl
I love collecting cassettes cassettes are really awesome and I love collecting vinyl and CDs there is nothing like holding onto something physical the artwork the music everything and I love the warm sound of vinyl and turning up the volume and hearing that snap crackle pop I also love hearing the hits on the cassette tape it’s very authentic I grew up on cassette tapes and I got into CDs and I got into vinyl records my new favorite record now it’s 78th and they’re really fantastic even though they’re made out of shellac but I think that should have a huge come back and I wanna do my part to make sure that it happens even blank blank cassette tapes are awesome I love recording them especially the 120 minute ones.
Thanks for sharing!
I want to post a video comment: currently listening to a cassette from 1973. Sounds great! It’s the cassette decks that need care before they destroy your tapes. Clean them, check the belts, don’t leave tapes in them when not playing. 8-Tracks are flimsy!!!!… but I LOVE them.
do you find cassettes and players to be high maintenance compared to other formats?
Growing up in the 80s, I had mixed reactions with cassette tapes. Sometimes they would sound amazing and other times like crap. I now know it's because of (1) the formulation of the tape itself, (2) the device and settings that records the tape, (3) the device that plays the tape, (4) the technology behind the tape (eg. Dolby B/C/S, HX-PRO, Digalog, etc.), and (5) the whether the device that plays the tape can take advantage of the encoded technology. The vast majority think tapes are simple. They are not. And that's why I collect cassettes: I'm still learning new things about something I should have known in the past.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciate cassettes for sure (I do not collect) but it seems like there are a ton of factors that play into making them sound a certain quality. Which is great for someone who is passionate and really into getting that sound quality, but not necessarily practical for the every day user.
Thanks for watching!!
I always liked the hiss. Thing I did not liked w casettes was you had to constantly flip them or blindy fast frwd them. Now I want to go back to them cause I start to appreciate Albums more and because vinyls and casettes are harder to skip tracks than cd or DAP players, you mentally go in such listening state.
I personally love cassettes for their sizes and yass, its sound quality!
I only got cassettes to record on and play them in the car. My cherished collections are on record albums and Cds. I used to like CDs in the 1980s when they were recorded lower. I hated when they started making CDs all louder sounding and cold.
When I listen to 80s City Pop, such as Mariya Takeuchi, Junko Ohashi, Anri, Tatsuro Yamashita, and many others, I do have another separate TH-cam tab opened, so a hiss can be played in the background, and I also have an Equalizer Chrome Extension and a pitch/speed control extension for TH-cam videos, to make the music sound like listening to sound like it's on cassette tape, since it's "80s Japanese Pop." I feel the hiss and that lo-fi sound of cassette tapes fits this music era VERY WELL, compared to Vinyl Crackling, which in my opinion, belongs in an older era than the 70s and 80s. Personality, I simulate the background noise of music format when listening to older music on TH-cam based on the era of both the music, and the format. It really enhances the vibe of the era of the music I listen to when it was released on that format ONLY, way before releasing it on CDs.
What a cool idea! I didn't even know that extension existed.
I moved for employment and within 5 years commuted for 90 minutes each way back to where I moved from. I recorded radio programmes and listened to them the next day on the train. So built up a large collection of off-air recordings (audio dramas documentary as well as music programmes). Recent I got a 1990s B&O system with a HX Pro and have been impressed with the quality of reproduction particularly of live recordings including those made on other decks with Dolby B and C. I have even managed to find sealed original recordings over 30 years old that are remarkably good now. Is the cassette, type 1 ferric in Dolby B up to the vinyl or CD possibly not, I can't really say. The music was so compelling in any format I too quickly got into listening to the music and not the equipment and that is all I want from any music playback.
There is one aspect that is very different. You can buy an inexpensive to insanely hi-end brand new turntable for vinyl but a decent to hi-end cassette deck has not be manufactured for decades.
:) the local thrift store sells cassettes for 3/$1! After repairing my dads old Nakamichi Cassette Deck 2, I’ve been having a blast finding old cassettes at the thrift stores.
I was very surprised by the quality that old higher-end decks can reproduce! Nothing like the boom boxes and car cassette decks I grew up on. I enjoy ripping my fresh vinyls onto a new old stock high end tape (usually type II, but some of my favorites get the type IV treatment). So I have a pretty bad ass old record collection, and many have only seen the needle one time! Cassettes are dope man, I hope they’re here to stay.
Great comment. Thanks for watching!
I love the way nice cassettes look when playing in classic machines but most people are not interested in the engeneering of mechanisms. Truly hifi systems have always been niche and even though vinyl is popular, the popular players are all those cheap systems because the mainstream which companies target (since that's where most money is made) don't really care about wow and flutter amongst other things. Also tapes are inconvenient since you do not have random access (for most people that's a big turn off) and finally a good sounding turntable is MUCH cheaper to build than a good sounding tape deck. Most people wouldn't want to open their wallets to spend a lot on a high end deck because in the end, vinyl as well as tapes are just a novelty today.
Completely agree here. I think if a medium requires expensive equipment, it’s not accessible to everyone and thus becomes a novelty. Which is okay, but I don’t like the idea of excluding people because they can’t afford the necessary equipment.
It's so important to use the right tape for your machine and the results will be amazing. Chromium or metal do best.
With an automatic Calibration possibility you will get the best result for every cassette.
No one collects cassettes because they don't make for good hipster home decor. A wall of records is more aesthetic than a wall of tapes.
Obviously vinyl has gotten popular for other reasons, but I'd wager a large portion of the demand is at least partially because of what I just said.
There are cassette tape collectors out there. I heard on the radio about one guy in Kentucky that has a collection of 27,000 cassettes. I have no idea how true that is. Myself I have amassed quite a collection over the years which I still use. They're easy to store and carry, many prerecorded tapes can be bought dirt cheap at yard sales or second hand stores, and they are quite rugged as long as they're kept away from strong magnets. The tape players are also more rugged than CD players.
That’s a crazy amount of cassettes!!
I just got a cassette player that someone was selling for very cheap on OfferUp and I couldn't resist. I've been dying for a way to listen to all my parents' old cassettes on an actual nice system, not just the old crappy boombox we have. What an experience, my parents have two Bob Marley and the Wailers cassettes and played through my -decent- system they sound incredible. Much warmer than CDs with more character (and much cheaper and easier to set up than a vinyl system). I'm definitely gonna go cassette digging next time I hit the thrift store.
I'm sad to say it seems like the days are gone of people owning stuff. This new digital transformation is making it so that you are never the owner of anything. Want to watch TV shows or movies, monthly subscription. Want to listen to music, monthly subscription. Everything is a rental now, I think this is why I am getting so much more into older mediums because you actually own the things, potentially forever! I understand there is a level of convenience to all the new age digital stuff (I mean just look at how I'm broadcasting this message), but there is also a level of satisfaction that can't be matched.
I haven’t the slightest clue. But as a very modest “collector” of them myself (personally owning about 150 & counting) I selfishly pray the pattern of less people thinking about jumping back on the ‘cassette’ bandwagon continues. 😉
haha agreed!
I started getting into casettes for a few reasons
the first one was the feel, more complex than just throwing a song up on youtube, so you actualy want to listen to the music you have gone thru the effort of putting on, but also less delicate than records, you dont have to baby them.
Second is the ability to tinker, but no requirement to, you can spend ages fucking about with settings and tape types, and stuff like that, or you can just stick something on and listen to it and its going to sound great either way
third was the ability to record and rerecord your own stuff, unlike with records, so I can just record my own playlists onto tape, and dont have to worry about it being interupted, or internet issues, or ads, or anything. Tape goes in, music I want goes on with no bullshit.
why don’t people just use their damn phones for music why you gotta put music on a tape or a record?
@@Jordan-fn5rj why do some people drive sports cars and not just get a fuel efficient nisan or something, gets you the same place in the same amount of time
because its fun, or different same reason people do anything past basic human needs
@@randomcow505 still dvd cds bluray is better
@@Jordan-fn5rj yea dude but a CD collection pulls way less daddy issue slash than a record collection does
I was a teenager in the 80s so used cassettes and vinyl a lot. I hated the hiss, rumble, crackle, etc. I couldn't afford high end decks or tapes so was stuck with the sound quality they offered.
When CDs came I was thrilled. Finally no hiss, crackle, dropouts, flutter, wow... Just silence and a stable speed. I did away with many of my records and tapes, though not all, for memories' sake.
During the past decade I've rediscovered my old collection. Decent decks are pretty easy to come by on eBay and such. Now I enjoy playing both again. And now I don't mind the hiss and crackle, I even enjoy it: it sets it apart from other formats.
The difference is: back then, it was just a means to listen to music, and it was the only means I had. So every scratch or dropout was there every listen again. Which was VERY annoying. Now, when I want to listen undisturbed I can just use Spotify or YT.
So now, when I play a tape or record I do so deliberately because I WANT it to be that tape or record that delivers me the music. And then hiss or crackle only confirms that choice.
Funny that when you can't have perfect you strive for perfection, while when perfect is freely available you strive for something that sets it apart in its imperfection.
This is a great point! Options are always good
this is a great video ! although the point about the tape lifespan being 30 years isn't exactly accurate, I personally have a tape from 1979-ish that still plays fine and even sounds pretty good, and I've heard lots of other similar experiences with old tapes. I believe there's even a vwestlife video actually testing it
Thanks for sharing!
The recording process was quite different between vinyl 33rpm records and pre-recorded commercial compact cassettes. The former were stamped individually from a press that was imprinted with the analog waveform of the original master tape. The latter were run off in faster-than-real time recording processes often multi-generation of tapes removed from the original master tape. They were often copied on cheap tape stock without Dolby or dbx noise reduction. As a result, most LPs sound better than most pre-recorded commercially manufactured cassettes. On the other hand, the cassette medium CAN have comparable fidelity; BUT ONLY by using a quality 3-head cassette with appropriate adjustments (bias, azimuth, etc.) and a quality tape formulation (type II or type IV) and recording the source in real time with well-set noise reduction. Most folks don't have the equipment or the interest/patience to get the most out of a cassette recording.
Super informative comment. Thanks for sharing!
I bought three formats over the years
For me I always used cassettes. I'm a so called gen x-er. I had some records and some CDs back in the day but I liked to mess around and edit on audio tapes (attempting and failing ) to make Paul Hardcastle style sounds. The recordability of cassettes appealed to me and I also pretended to be a radio DJ playing my tracks commentating on friends playing sports etc. I only gave up cassettes when I had to get rid of bag loads of recorded on blank cassettes when I moved house about 13 years ago. And now I'm slowly getting back into it. Though I actually think mixing analogue cassettes and putting onto my PC to edit is the best of both worlds. Acts as a back up and allows for editing (keeping the analogue sound without filters).
I think what truly holds back cassette collecting and usage is the lack of quality playback hardware.
There is not enough financial incentive (or potentially know-how) to create high quality cassette mechanisms that companies can use to create good players. Sony and many other manufacturers who might have the patents to create excellent decks or portable stereos aren't making them anymore, so you end up with the same low quality players using the same bare bones mechanisms that sound terrible.
It's hard to recommend that someone get on eBay and learn all about 30 year old decks, take chances that they will be broken, find local repair shops if any, and spend hundreds of dollars in the process.
I have 4 vintage cassette decks. 1 is non functional and i'm not going to invest in it. The other three are excellent and i'm spreading the wear and tear out between the three of them. I have 4 walkmen, 2 of which are barely functional, 1 is decent, 1 is good, and two small cheap boomboxes which are barely hanging in there.
All in that was probably $600-$700 including repairs and audio cables. So it's a big investment that is not going to catch fire unless a large electronics company with the know-how to create good players decides to mass produce the Walkman again.
That said, the cassette is the anti-thesis to the disposable, you-actually-own-nothing digital streaming world we have today.
You can take any audio source whatsover and create a mixtape. I can capture a cover of a song on TH-cam with 200 views and keep it forever, whether that video stays up or not. We can scoop up the ephemeral "content" of the internet and hold it in our hands in a physical object that will continue to sound great for 30-50 years.
Fantastic points!! Thank you for commenting
LP isn't portable home use only. For high mobile lifestyle you need cassette, CD and so on...
I have over 22,000 cassettes, and have heard about half of them, all the way through. For over 30 years, collecting and listening has provided me an affordable and fulfilling pastime. In the early point of collecting- the first 500 or so- there could have been a switch to CD's however they were more expensive and remained so long after. A transient lifestyle made vinyl not a secure choice. I find that people who overly obsess about audio quality often don't open their ears up to noisier sounds and tend to think along binary, conservative terms, it's either good or bad music. It's not that the things they like are necessarily boring, but they often value safe, sanitized music, to fit their hi-fi safe, sanitized listening experience. Pop culture creating singing competitions has only furthered this narrow-mindedness. Not every tape I own even plays well; some are over 50 years old, and do play reasonably well. But, this format is quickly as it becomes obsolete due to the lack of decent players, taking on the curiousity of an historical artifact. At the same time I've transitioned from focusing on having more tapes than anyone, to having the best and rarest tapes- demos, promos, limited runs of odd things- and because it's music, it's enjoyed as such- but there's also the thrill of the hunt. Finding the cassette. Winning the auction. Seeing that it's shipped, and tracking the package. Opening the package. Finally listening to the music. And finally filing the tape into its new home. Every step of this releases some sort of dopamine for me, I'm sure. Now, most people will never have anything like this collection as it spans the fading of the format in the late 90's to its resurgence in the mid 2000's. Still there may be value for some particularly those who gave their collections away 25 years ago seeking nostalgia, or even their curious kids who might want to know what that last generation before computers was all about. To hear the cartridge slide into the door, close the door and push play (rewinding if needed.) I would pay no mind to those who simply judge an audio experience to be good or bad based on fidelity. That might be true for you too, but if you're like me and it's not, don't miss out on a different way to enjoy music. As for my collection, it's my dream to retire it as a listening experience in order to prevent covetous individuals who would be out to make money off of it, and instead have it join a museum of 20th century music formats, where in a large block form, thousands of titles can be displayed on a wall- not unlike the large record stores from which many of them were purchased.
Wow! Super impressive. Thank you so much for sharing.
@@MusicTheoriesChannel Thank you for reading all that.
As a thrifty music collector myself, I tend to stray from the cassette shelves. Varying degrees of quality is a constant on the secondhand market, I'm well aware; but with CDs and vinyl you can usually detect signs of wear fairly easily, be it scratches, dirt, etc. Such is not the case for tapes, unless you look at it with microscopic vision. This, combined with their general flimsiness and natural degradation, makes me wary of touching a cassette with anything less than a 10-foot pole.
I'm assuming you don't want to take up the space and spend the cash (which I totally respect). If you thrift a lot you should (I hate telling others to "should" btw) grab a cassette boombox or even a deck (which is the way better option IMO) to test whether or not you think they hold up. I really did love how professional you sounded when you said something about finding the right facility to test the theory.
This video rocks by the way.
I actually almost bought a tape deck at a thrift store a few weeks ago! I am definitely considering purchasing one at some point. Are you into tapes and, if so, do you have any player recommendations or tips for what I should be looking for when thrifting?
Thank you so much for watching as well (:
@@MusicTheoriesChannel May I throw in two conflicting considerations on cassette decks...
1. Seek the best engineering: top-of-the-line models, or something not-so-top-of-the-line from the "precious three" (Nakamichi, Studer, Tandberg). Oh well, Studer was only making TOTL decks, so it's down to Nak and Tandberg.
2. Seek the best mechanical condition. In the long run, a well-kept, low-mileage "average" deck may be a wiser choice.
In my case, the absolutely best (and not that expensive) choice was a rebuilt Revox B215 bought from a trusted guy who rebuilds them for a living. A rare combination of both points above.
Cool video. I like your voice. Cassettes were my first audio format, being hewn in the 80's. I remember being excited by CDs, but once I got a CD player, I was really disappointed. Sure, skipping tracks was cool... but skipping was not. I couldn't walk around with a CD player and listen to music. I couldn't play it in my car while I was driving without it skipping. Oh my gosh, I left my CD in my visor holder and the face ripped off and it's ruined due to the heat; I dropped it and now it has a scratch and it skips 10 times on my favorite song.
I think Minidisc impressed me more, but it was expensive and I guess patented(? like the 8track?) and ultimately failed to catch on.
These days I do the bulk of my listening right here on YT+. I have a small vinyl collection. It's fun and interesting. Beautiful art. Mostly newer stuff, synthwave and techno. Some mix club vinyls (vinyl moon; love it but had to cancel for a while $). I'm like 25% nostalgic music and the rest is constantly evolving. I'm open to cassettes. I think they were a pretty good format. From what I understand one of the biggest issues is a lot of them were not produced on quality cassette tapes?
Frankly, I have a lot of good memories, sitting by the radio waiting to catch a song and record it on cassette. Making mix tapes for myself and my friends and girls :) Certainly if you were playing on a home theatre, the sound quality of CDs was fresh and bright, but I could have done without them. AOL CDs made good coasters :D I think I would be fine if music were never on CDs, just data. My old CD collection is laying around but it's scratched and not nostalgic or special and I don't bother with it.
On the other hand I still cherish my cassette mix tape from Mrs. S, that no longer plays since it wasn't a high quality cassette recording...
I love this comment. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and memories!
I had my cassette phase from about 1987-1993, than I switched to vinyl.
I’m twenty-six. I grew up driving old trucks with cassette players. And I liked the look of boomboxes. And the argument of vinyl vs digital piqued my interest. Cd makes me feel distant from the music. I cannot really immerse myself in it. Constantly adjusting the volume or skipping over songs. Same for when I’m listening to music on the iPhone. I feel irritated and tired after a few songs.
Vinyl does have those added layers and nice sound quality, but in my personal opinion, it doesn’t have the power- the rawness that a cassette in a quality boombox possesses. Less cumbersome than a round-table too. All I gotta do is reach out from my bed to my radio on the nightstand to adjust settings.
Have thousands of dollars worth of high end audiophile equipement, only using flac and wav with dacs yet I find myself constantly coming back to the cassettes with my walkmans. Theres a certain warmth and tonal quality that you can only find with cassettes.
The physicality and movement of its mechanisms makes you feel much more involved instead of just mindlessly pressing a touchscreen button, same goes for making a playlist where you have to do the recordings yourself. I guess that's the charm of cassettes and other forms of physical media.
When you are always listening to hifi music it eventually becomes mundane.
I also think people are going back to phyisical media because services are and have been revoking rights for playback regardless of purchasing or not. Its happening not just for music but movies and games where peoples digital licenses can be revoked suddenly.
I do agree - there’s an element of self-sabotage in regard to streaming/digital music companies
I think that Cassettes are far cooler than CDs and would love to collect them instead as a cheaper alternative to Vinyl. However, nobody really makes them anymore, but they still make CDs. I'd love to see Cassettes make the same comeback that Vinyl did, as a compact mobil, and cheaper alternative to physical media music collecting. I'd start collecting tomorrow.
Cassettes can be fantastic. Their drawbacks are very similar to vinyl records, where the quality of the recording and the equipment they're being played on can make a huge difference. The cheaper your equipment, the worse overall listening experience you'll have. Each time you upgrade your equipment and speakers, you'll almost always hear the improvement in sound. In order to get the best possible playback equipment, you usually have to go vintage, and most affordable cassette decks just don't come close to the decks made in it's heyday. There are, however, many great options available for turntables and styli. The other factor is the quality of the tape itself. Music can shine on cassette when recorded properly on high bias Chrome and Metal tapes, while having drawbacks in audio quality when recorded on standard bias tapes. And unfortunately, you can't buy high bias cassettes brand new anymore, only the standard tape. I still love recording onto cassettes from my record collection like I did when I was a kid. And I fortunately kept all of my blank high bias tapes, and have a great 1978 Pioneer CT-F700 deck to play them on, so everything sounds really good. However, in my opinion, cassettes will never have a revival like the vinyl record has until the consumer level equipment and the quality of recording tape improves.
Great comment - thanks for sharing!
The cons of cassettes are endless. Don't forget how the track listings of albums were always in a random order to fit all the songs on the tape. Nothing like your favourite album being jumbled up.
imagine that!
This isn’t true.